


Saudade

by Chishionotenshi



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Play, Anal Sex, Bucky and Steve have a little girl, Bucky is Bi, Bucky likes it rough, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, F/M, Gun Violence, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, M/M, Oral Sex, Rough Oral Sex, Sex, Steve is a sucker, Steve is probably Bi, Stucky - Freeform, Stuckybabies, There may be kittens, implied violence against child
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-07 14:29:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 27
Words: 62,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3176058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chishionotenshi/pseuds/Chishionotenshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is searching for Bucky in the wake of the fall of SHIELD. But what, or who, is the Winter Soldier seeking?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fog

He could not remember how he had gotten here. This was not entirely new. Much of his life was gray, or white static, or simply nothingness.

Yet he knew he needed to be in this place, and why he knew that was another blank. If this went on, he might lose control of his rage. When it spiraled out of his grasp, he knew he would hit and hit and hit until there was nothing left around him, and then he would turn that rage inward. He knew that was all wrong, but once again, he lacked a reason why.

This place was a school, or more precisely the sidewalk just to the east of the school. Only a small sliver of the schoolyard was visible to him from this location. Grey concrete with brilliant yellow lines surrounded by mere flimsy chain-link fence, with a wide open entry point. These people, he considered, could not protect a brick wall.

Certainly they could not protect the children. He had already seen two girls- gawky and awkward creatures- hauled up before some sort of judge and jury arrangement of older, sleeker girls and made miserable. Now they were dragging over another as the last ran off in tears with her hair filled with what she had been assured was genuine dog crap. This new girl, though, was a fighter.

Skinny, with a mule stubborn jawline, the light-haired girl was yanking around her captors as much as they were pulling her, and she was not afraid to give them a kick if it meant avoiding this group all together. Hooking one ratty sneaker around the ankle of the taller assailant, she jerked the girl off balance, and then smashed the remaining girl into her ally.

“Oh, give it up, Rogers,” sneered the probable judge. “Come on, guys, take her down!”

He had heard that before, he knew it in his blood and bones. That phrase conjured up a narrow alleyway, a sky above full of washing lines and the bitter taste of copper. A painful flash of twig-thin boy with about as much muscle as a pencil, blond hair and the biggest blue eyes ever about to be blackened crossed his vision, and the memory of his own voice saying brokenly, “I knew him.”

He came back to the present, shaken. Angry at his inability to concentrate, he almost left. But then the jeering of the modern day tunneled in through the rage.

“Stay down, loser!”

“Yeah, moron!”

“Give up!”

“Nobody likes you!”

The girls had piled in, and barely a scuffed sole poking through betrayed the presence of their victim. Hauling them up one by one, the sneering judge got to her intended target and grabbed a fistful of fabric. Face twisted in disgust and anger, she spat,

“Think you're so clever, don't you? Think taking the name of a piddling superhero is going to protect you from me? Well, think twice.”

“Coward,” the other girl said softly, but with a disturbed steadiness to her voice that brought another flash of memory, just a sensation of a strong hand wrapped behind his back and a shoulder jammed under his arm pit, holding him up.

“You don't get to do whatever you want here, teacher's pet,” the judge continued on, shaking the smaller girl fiercely. “This is my school, kiss-ass, and you don't get in my way.”

“You're still a coward,” repeated the victim mulishly. “If you want something, get it yourself. But no, you'd break a nail, so you send somebody else to do it. You're the worst kind of bully, because you're too scared to do your own fighting.”

“Oh, yeah?”

The older girl pulled back her hand to strike, and now the victim was the one sneering. “You call that a fist?”

They went down in a tangle, and all the others started yelling encouragement. If their shouts could have determined the outcome, it would have gone all one way. But, out-matched as she was, the little one would not stay down; she refused to concede defeat despite the odds. Even if she bested the leader, the rest were sure to pile in at any time. Why did she get herself into this mess at all?

Almost no more than a whisper, in his mind a voice said, “I don't like bullies.”

Then a buzzer went off, and like flies shooed off a hunk of rancid meat, the clique melted away. Left behind, panting alarmingly, their intended target slid to her knees to catch her breath. She was a mess: torn clothing, dirt all over, various bits of schoolyard debris in her hair and one shoe completely missing. No adult would believe any story she came up with; likely even the truth would be unbelievable. And if she did not get up quickly, she was sure to be caught between a rock and a hard place.

Sure enough, a teacher with his white ID badge in plain sight rounded the side of the building. He caught sight of her and seemed to sag for a moment. Running his hand through his graying hair, he heaved a sigh clearly evident from the rise and fall of his chest. Then he ambled up to about three feet from the girl and said, with disappointment dripping from every syllable,

“Fighting again, Stephanie?”

“It's Stevie,” the girl told the ground, head between her knees.

“I've told you before, the other kids will make fun of you for insisting on a boy's name. Especially that one,” the teacher pointed out. Shoulders rose and fell on the girl.

“It isn't their business, is it? It's my name.”

“All right, fine. Stephanie- excuse me, Stevie- why were you fighting this time?”

Another quick shrug. “Maybe I don't like her face.”

“Whose face?”

Silence greeted this question.

“Stevie, who were you fighting with?”

“Nobody you're going to punish,” came the sharp reply. “None of you care what she does anyhow.”

“Now Stevie-”

She came to her feet like a streak of lightning. “She's been using a whole gang to go around during lunch and between classes, beating up the younger kids and you never stop her. So I got between her dumb posse and a couple kids, and she has me dragged over here like an animal, and then tells me she owns this school.

“Well, I can't argue with that, the way she runs this place, and the way you all roll over like dogs when she bats her eyes at you and calls the rest of us liars who are out to get her. I sure would like to get her. I'd spank her like her mom and dad outta, because she's a stuck-up bitch who thinks the world revolves around her asshole- can't be her mouth, because no mouth ever spewed the kind of shit she blurts out on a regular basis. And you can punish me all you like for it, but if I get the chance, I will show her exactly what she deserves for picking on people you don't care about because their parents don't hand over thousand dollar checks for every club they join or classroom they're assigned. Don't you tell me it ain't the money, because money makes everything it touches stink to high heaven and if you get any closer, I'll smell the pig on you, sure as shootin'.”

With a toss of her ragged dark blonde hair, the girl added with a sniff, “Drag me up to the principal's office, if you want. I'd rather go home than hang around this den of corruption.”

The teacher looked dazed, and then said, “Stevie, you really shouldn't say those things.”

“Well, if I don't speak up for my brothers in suffering, who's gonna?” she demanded, continuing her strange mix of surprisingly articulate speech with periods of sloppy contractions.

Watching her elder fumble for an explanation, from his vantage point on the sidewalk, he wondered why she bothered. Den of corruption sounded like an apt term, so why stick around? There had to be places to hide, ways out. Yet she had to stick her nose in and get it punched for her trouble.

Why did this all seem so familiar, as if it had played out in front of him dozens of times before? He had never seen her before, he knew that. Yet, somewhere in the static memories there was a recollection of something so much like this that it was almost like a double, laying itself over the scene before him. But there was not one girl, there were two-

“Stevie Rogers,” came the rich bellow of a massive black woman from the door of the school, “You are in deep, young lady! You get in here right this minute before I tan your hide and use it to replace the broken blind in my classroom. Nobody, but nobody, skips out on my class!”

Casting a eloquent disgusted glance at the other teacher, she practically scooped up the truant, keeping up what promised to be a constant litany of what she intended to do, practical and not in the realm of the possible, with her errant pupil. Stevie, contrary to before, appeared to intend to remain silent. After a moment of looking around as if he had lost something, the other man hurried to follow his colleague. Now there was no one else to watch.

“Stevie Rogers,” he said to himself quietly, savoring the name. It was almost right, like a flavor forgotten but suddenly recalled by a similar one. Was she what he was here for? That made no sense. What good would a skinny eleven year old girl do him?

She was almost as angry as he was, he thought, turning from the school to look out at the horizon. Given how she had picked that fight with the bigger girl, it was unlikely that she had a better grip on her rage, either. That could not be what he was here for, then. He would just have to be patient. The memory would come. It was burned into his brain somewhere among all the scars. All he had to do was wait.


	2. Drizzle

Ice pack held to her nose, Stevie had long since stopped listening closely to Mrs. Cornelia Emerson's threats. So far she had never repeated one, but if she caught on that variety alone was not enough to hold her student's interests, one could only imagine what she might do next. Still vaguely scanning for buzzwords, Stevie took a moment to consider her history teacher.

Mrs. Cornelia Emerson has boomed out on the first day of the year, to the vaguely terrified class of room 124, “You all need to get something perfectly straight. None of you is to call me Mrs. Emerson. It is Mrs. Cornelia Emerson or nothing, understand? My great-grandfather gave me this name for my great-great grandmother who chose her very own name after the Civil War. Even if Emerson was a white man's name, he was a wonderful poet, and anti-slavery to boot, and do not doubt that you are going to find that out in this very room. When I married my husband, I told him, 'Honey, I love you, but my family swore never to let a white man take our name away again, so you will settle for Mrs. or nothing.' If I can hold him to that, you'd best believe that I will hold you to giving my full name.”

She was big, she was loud, and she did not have time for funny business. If you had something to say, it had better be to everyone. If you had something to eat, if that was in the classroom, it surely was meant for the whole room to enjoy. Heaven forbid anyone bring in their cellphone!

All that aside, or even perhaps because of all that, Mrs. Cornelia Emerson ran one of the best classes in Lincoln Intermediary School. History was not dates, she emphasized, it was people making events happen and other people writing it down. She taught them with exercises, and games, and poetry, and yes- oh, yes- food. She was the kind of woman who knew how hungry preteens were, even after lunch. Any parent who raised a fuss about the food from Mrs. Cornelia Emerson's kitchen would be shouted down by children and parents alike, while she sat smugly at the PTA meeting in her infamous black feather boa and inexplicable saddle shoes.

Most importantly to Stevie, Mrs. Cornelia Emerson was as anti-Anne Waitts as Stevie was. She had boldly and flatly refused to have her in the classroom after two mere days back in Annie's first year. And she stuck to it. That Annie Waitts, the history teacher had announced before a horrified school board this September, was nothing but trouble with a simper. Probably she ought to have been fired, or at least publicly scolded, but no one dared scold Mrs. Cornelia Emerson. Even Mr. Oakton, the sadistic principal who loved to ridicule students in morning assembly and call parents in from their minimum wage jobs just to waste two hours telling them what a total washout their child would surely be- even he did not want to be on the bad side of Mrs. Cornelia Emerson.

That did not stop him, or the school board, from pocketing Annie Waitts's father's fat checks, of course. Schools everywhere had funding problems, but Stevie never saw that check making a difference around here. According to older students not in Annie's army of thugs-in-training, the gym mats were no less ratty, the playground equipment no newer, and the textbooks no less embarrassingly outdated than they had been since Annie's father had begun waving around his wallet. Maybe it went to the staff, but certainly none of it made its way into Mrs. Cornelia Emerson's pocket, and it was not hiring people who were certified to teach math, either. Algebra was taught with frantic arm waving and class-wide debates, settled by vote. Stevie was doing the best she could with a four-times renewed textbook from the library that at least included instructions. She preferred poetry anyhow.

“Stevie Rogers, you can keep daydreaming if you recite me a stanza,” came the grim command. The class tittered as if entertainment was forthcoming, but Stevie never failed this test.

“Good-by to Flattery's fawning face, To Grandeur, with his wise grimace, To upstart Wealth's averted eye, To supple Office low and high, To crowded halls, to court, and street, To frozen hearts, and hasting feet, To those who go, and those who come, Good-by, proud world, I'm going home.”

“A little more heart in it and I'd think you were listening,” sniffed Mrs. Cornelia Emerson, but Stevie knew she had appeased the teacher with the choice. It was, after all, purest Emerson.

Freed for the moment from scrutiny, Stevie adjusted the ice pack. Her nose was her own fault. Trust Annie to not land a single real blow, and then Stevie herself to help her out by misjudging the difference between their respective reach. She would remember that next time.

And there would be a next time. Annie Waitts was as reluctant as Stevie to let go. Maybe if she devoted her energy to something more positive, like knitting sweaters for the homeless, she would be more of a human being. For the moment, however, she promised to remain a nasty shell of a person, getting her kicks out of making other kids cry, by ordering still other students to make them cry.

Older students swore Annie had lots to offer girls who would become fawning thugs for hire: jewelry, castoffs that were brand name and sometimes new, make-up, toys- even old boyfriends. The trouble was staying in her good graces long enough to earn any of that. Like every other new kid, Stevie had noticed Annie looking her over, and then casually dismissing her with a glance. She tended to pick pretty girls who nevertheless lacked self-confidence, either because they had not yet hit puberty, or they had. It was a mystery to flat-chested, flat-bottomed Stevie why that mattered, but her fellow girls seemed anxious about that sort of thing.

For Stevie, it took all of a day to figure out what kind of person Annie was, when she ran into a bright, sweetheart of a girl reduced to tears because she'd been told she “might have good insides, but outsides were all anyone cared about.” Of course this required careful handling, so Stevie dropped the girl off with a group of sympathetic and oddly fearful girls, and went to find the nasty-mouthed kid responsible. She'd surprised Annie Waitts alone and told her off firmly. Annie had tried to smirk when she said Stevie would regret it, but when Stevie had made a fist, the older girl had skedaddled. A coward, plain and simple.

A little while later, a lot of the kids around her started poking fun at her nickname, as if there were some kind of joke in it. Heck, if Captain America's name was Steve Rogers, what was it to Stevie? He seemed like an okay guy, but she knew next to nothing about superheroes. They were as distant and knowable as the moon. Let them come try out her middle school, especially the lunches, and then they might be relatable.

Anyway, of course Annie Waitts had been behind the pointless teasing. Stevie simply rolled her eyes at the herd mentality of her fellow students. What could be expected of people who thought Dali was “weird,” and Shakespeare “talked funny,” and that the Declaration of Independence had something to do with the creation of the internet? Mrs. Cornelia Emerson had her work cut out for her, and not all these kids were so blessed to have her molding their minds.

Since Stevie was not rolling over in submission over poorly thought-out insults, Annie chose to try and cut her from every bit of fun, by attempting to provoke her deliberately in sight, but out of hearing, of the staff. Stevie did not rile easily, though- she had long ago learned how to shut the door on petty stuff- and Annie had risked suspension by slapping her in plain view. That was how Stevie had discovered the money angle.

Mr. Steward had seen it all, and delivered a lecture as ineffectual as the one he had tried to give Stevie earlier today. Clearly, something was up. He writhed like a worm on a hook to avoid meting out actual punishment while still putting up a front of authority. Seeing how useless he was, Stevie had wandered away to find Mrs. Cornelia Emerson. She might yell about something being none of your business, but she would tell you anything that was. It was all, Stevie was firmly told, business as usual as far as the Waitts angle was concerned.

The gang attacks on “weaker” students were also nothing new since Annie had strolled in after being expelled from her private school for “unbecoming conduct,” either. Only a few weeks after the beginning of that school year, so the ninth graders liked to say, a group of six girls, spurred on by Annie, had jumped the smallest boy in the school. Kids either joined her, learned to run, or developed a sudden allergy to being anywhere without a teacher or a total of at least five students. Someone would make it out to call a teacher.

So here in the middle of it all sat Stevie, watching the new tradition of Lincoln Intermediary School become stamping out dozens of suspensions, expulsions, condescending tips from Mr. Oakton on “proper student social interactions,” and the records of student making a desperate break from the school, even if it meant waking up at 5am to walk two miles to catch the bus to another school; any other school. Mrs. Cornelia Emerson might speak up, tired and worried parents might speak up, but nobody looked to be in line to give Annie Waitts what she clearly needed: a good, old-fashioned whooping. Scrawny and not blessed with invisible muscles, Stevie still aimed to trounce Annie Waitts one day, just to remind her that other people did not approve.

That aside, Annie was doing her a favor. Without her around, Stevie would have to think about the stuff going on at home. That was not likely to change any time soon. It made her reluctant to even leave the school grounds at the end of the day. What a-

The strangely muffled ring of the school bell cut through her thoughts. As quietly as possible, she slid her notebook off the desk into her waiting bag. A piece of notepaper and a pencil remained, because no mere piece of metal would dictate when she was finished with a lesson, and homework was only given out afterward. Once she had kept this class and the next waiting ten minutes because someone had been foolish enough to say they thought the poet Emerson was a fruitcake. It had been an educational ten minutes, for sure. Stevie added two new swearwords to her vocabulary, as every other student must have done.

“It's Tuesday,” Mrs. Cornelia Emerson reminded the class. “You know that means: I'm giving all of you the chance to be lazy louts tomorrow if you remember to watch the Secrets of the Dead episode on PBS and write me a paragraph on the best piece of evidence given, and another on why you think it is the best. If anybody doesn't turn it in, though, we'll skip the break in favor of Art Exploration.”

Most of the class groaned. Unlike Stevie, they were not in favor of learning about people who had not “really worked” for a living. Too bad Mrs. Cornelia Emerson never told them who she had in mind. Stevie would happily forget to do the homework if she could learn more about Rodin, or L.M. Alcott.

Pencil and paper followed the notebook and Stevie joined the throng heading for the next piece of education. Making her way with, and sometimes against, the flood of students, she wondered if this was what the founders of public education intended. Were pupils meant to look drained, stretched thin, and frail as vintage china? All that fear, loneliness and inarticulate rage bottled up until it ate them alive- could that be intended from hundreds of years ago? She could not help thinking that somewhere along the line, much like in her own life, something had gone horribly wrong.


	3. Downpour

He was still waiting, despite the short downpour twenty minutes ago. Patience had been beaten into him, or perhaps even burned into his brain. Something was here: a job, a kill, a memory? He did not know. But a little damp and cold would not make him move.

Students were pouring out of the school building, hastening away as fast as their legs could take them. Some were shouting back and forth across the street and mobs of them had traffic mostly stopped, regardless of safety. Horns honked, but most drivers had only looks of resignation. Presumably they knew this would happen, then.

Endurance waning, he considered moving on. Then, at the farthest door along this side of the street, he noticed a stillness. The girl from earlier was being held by her arm in the grip of a taller man. Despite his tidy and calm appearance, there was a definite low-grade threatening air about him. Of course, as before, the student did not seem perturbed.

Slowly, he headed in that direction, noting the sharp gestures the man in the suit was making and the way the girl seemed utterly indifferent. Around them, stragglers edged carefully away while obviously trying not to be worthy of attention. She could not be the cause of that fear.

Not close enough to hear the muted conversation, he nevertheless heard her shout, “Don't you talk about my mother!”

That cry, a mixture of rage and bitter agony, shook loose another web of memory from the gray. A scarecrow of a boy, a tangle of limbs, blood and bruises and wretched sobbing. Lifting up a skeleton, hearing a bully's laugh, a punch so solid and satisfying it could have been an orgasm. The warmth of a quaking boy in his arms, the aroma of cheap pomade, the steady drip of tears over skin. And the soft, soft whisper, “I don't know what to do, Buck.”

The strands fell away, leaving him shaking within. As if it understood dramatic necessity, the sky opened up, intending to soak him to his bones. Just now, he could not bring himself to mind.

The girl had shaken off the hand on her arm and started backing up. Cheeks scarlet with fury, she was merely panting hard, fighting what would surely be a losing battle with her own temper. At last he could hear what she was being told.

“Miss Rogers, this school has been highly tolerant of your little tantrums up to this point. Obviously, you have been grieving. But that time is long since passed. It has been five years. More than time enough for you to stop being so dramatic. Move on. Another outburst from you, and you may consider yourself suspended.”

“What's the matter? Missed your quota for the week?” snapped back the child, and before she could be scolded, she ran.

She was not paying a lot of attention to her trajectory, and he caught her before she could break an ankle going off the curb. The look she gave him, stubborn chin juxtaposed with tears falling from her light blue eyes jerked aside a curtain. It was her. He was here for her.

The shock had to wait. Unable to turn off his awareness of the world, he heard the car driving too fast, too close. He spun, putting the girl behind him, whether she wanted to be or not. His gun slid all too easily out of his pocket.

They were pathetic. He downed the four of them as each stepped from the vehicle, like picking fleas off white sheets. None of them had a weapon out! What were they expecting? Did they intend to simply grab her from his arms? Leaving her on the sidewalk, he went around to the driver's side. Who was his next target?

As he knelt to inspect the driver, he realized with a twist of his gut that he had miscalculated. There was a fifth man, who rolled from his seat in the back and out the opposite door. The killer's gun was out, and he simply fired before he hit the ground. There was a soft exclamation.

Leaping over the SUV, he landed full force on the assailant, stunning him. He grabbed the gun and put it in his other pocket. Then he turned to see what his mistake had cost him.

She was still on her feet, frantically trying to press her hands over the wound in her belly. Dark red stains were spreading downward quickly aided by the pouring rain, and her knees buckled. She was so small, so light that her fall was slow. Not until she had curled up around the hole in her front did she start to cry in pain.

He was too late. Returning to the attacker who groaned beneath him, black rage settled behind his eyes. How dare they take this from him! Using his metal arm, he pressed down on the man's throat and growled out,

“Why?”

But his patience for answers was gone. They had to pay! He could not be sure how long it was until he found himself breathing hard over the corpse of the last would-be killer. No, not again! Scrambling to his feet, he backed away from the ravaged face. Red on his hands, again. This was why he kept running, why he-

A high-pitched whimper snatched his attention and pulled him back to the child. Now on her back, she was still trying to cover the wound, fighting what was inevitable. Although he did not want to watch this moment, he found himself on his knees at her side. His mistake, his penance.

Her eyes opened, still clear and blue. “Please, help me.”

Could she truly believe in him? Was that trust in those eyes, so familiar and yet unknown? He did not know what to do, but she knew that. Even when he failed to act, she was reaching out, catching his metal hand and saying quietly,

“Help me. Don't let me die. You have to save me.”

Feeling a strange flutter in his chest, he plucked her from the concrete. Cradling her in his arms, he felt another whisper of remembrance. Dark hair, a soft smile and a feeling of dangerous release. Fingers tapping his metal arm all the way to his shoulder, and a child's giggle. The brush of soft skin against his stubble, and a tender kiss that turned to something more fiery. A tiny prick of pain, and the sweetest mournful voice saying gently,

“They say I'm corrupting you, James. But isn't she beautiful?” Another little chuckle and then warm breath tickling his ear, “One day, he'll see her too. Protect her, so your heart can be full when your family is whole.”


	4. Haze

“Hey. You know, coffee tastes best when you drink it.”

Steve looked up at Sam Wilson. “What?”

Sighing, Sam leaned forward over the tiny table. “Listen, I know you're hurting over Bucky, but we went all over Europe without any sign of him. I'm starting to think he never left the country.”

“But where is he? And why would he stay here? People have to be looking for him.”

“Yeah, you,” Sam pointed out, and then nudged Steve's coffee. “But you're not going to find him if you're not on point, my friend.”

“I'm always on point when we investigate,” Steve reminded him, but he picked up the coffee anyway. It was stone cold, just like the untouched omelet in front of him.

“No, not- it means in tip-top shape. I hope that's old enough for you.”

“Ancient,” Steve agreed, but he was cut off by a horrendous blare from the radio.

One of the other customers shouted over it, “Jesus, turn it off Paul! Fucking tests!”

“Keep your shirt on,” said the manager, and added as he made his way over the carpet toward the box, “And tone down the swearing. It's almost time for the diner rush.”

By the time he had woven his path through the tables, however, a recorded male voice had begun to speak, “An Amber alert has been issued by the Oregon State Police for Multnomah and the surrounding counties. 4:10pm December 1st for missing female child Stephanie Rogers. Stephanie is ten years old, and approximately four feet tall, around sixty pounds. She has dark blonde hair and blue eyes. At last sighting she was wearing a light blue T-shirt, black jeans and white sneakers. The abduction occurred outside of Lincoln Intermediary School. Her abductor is unknown to local authorities or Stephanie's family. He is described as being approximately six feet tall, with shoulder-length brown hair. He is known to be armed. Anyone with information on either Stephanie or her abductor should contact their local authorities. Again, Stephanie Rogers, aged ten, went missing from Lincoln Intermediary School at 3pm on December 3rd. This alert will repeat.”

“Throw on the TV,” suggested an older woman at the end of the bar. “It'll be on the news.”

“Rogers, huh? A cousin,” suggested Sam. Steve shook his head.

“My mom had family, not my dad.”

By the bar, a few patrons were muttering about a game being on soon. Nevertheless, Paul was flipping stations. Sports were not as important to these people. Steve kind of liked that. The locals news was in the midst of breaking the story, and he could not help but listen in.

“-top story this afternoon: a school shooting and kidnapping. Local authorities say Stephanie Rogers was abducted from outside the south eastern exit of Lincoln Intermediary School this afternoon, approximately fifteen minutes after classes ended for the day. A man in a black coat and jeans apparently got involved in a firefight with five men in a black SUV. During this scuffle, witnesses claim, Stephanie was grabbed by the unknown man, and put in the SUV. The other men were pronounced dead at the scene. On location with more is-”

“Oh, no you do not,” Sam said, grabbing Steve's phone from him. “We are not getting mixed up in this Steve.”

“She's a kid, Sam.”

Hands up in a half-shrug, Sam reminded him, “And she's got a whole bunch of pros looking for her. Hell, we're good at storming castles and getting lost in multiple foreign languages, but this guy sounds like a real nutjob. How bad would you like to mess up today?”

Steve sighed heavily, and Sam continued on, “I'm not saying if we see her we'll just stand there with our thumbs up our asses, but let's not go making things worse. And finish your damn omelet. You don't run on sunshine; I should know.”

Trying not to show his disappointment, Steve concentrated on his food. He knew these last several months had been hard on Sam. The former soldier was definitely not made to chase around an obsessed “super-human,” but he went everywhere Steve did: making him eat, telling him jokes, being a great friend in general, and summoning the threat of Natasha whenever Steve went too far. But good buddy though he was, Sam was no Bucky Barnes.

Bucky would have grinned cockily at Steve and said, “All right, shrimp, let's go bring that little girl home. I know you won't sleep until we do, you little son-of-a-bitch.”

That Bucky was gone, Steve tried to remind himself. There might be a little piece of him inside the shell HYDRA had hollowed out, but it would never be enough. Steve needed to bring him somewhere safe, a place he could recover in the hands of experts. Yet, there had been no sign of him in Europe. Natasha had assured him that it was not at all likely Bucky made it to Russia, nor that he would have any reason to. But he had not gone back to New York, either. It was starting to be impossible for Steve to sleep, trying to figure out where his best friend could be.

Partly, that was how he and Sam ended up in this small city on the west coast, full of weird people- well, weirder than New Yorkers. To keep him from driving her mad, Natasha had badgered Hill into coming up with some West Coast contacts that needed to be checked up on. This mission was almost wrapped up, however, and no one seemed any closer to finding Bucky.

Steve needed to find him. It was an ache he doubted most of the Avengers, or Sam, understood. Partly that was his own fault, because he had never explained-

“Jesus, the kid was shot?” exclaimed the man who had tried to force the manager to turn off the radio. “You'd think that was pertinent information!”

There was a lot of hushing that covered up the television, but eventually it settled. News stations in the future seemed to think the only way to impart information was to repeat it about six times, therefore the report was run again five minutes later.

“-said witnesses. Another unconfirmed report is that the assailant wore a metal glove of some kind, which he used to assault the fifth man, effectively bludgeoning him to death. Gruesome details to be sure, if they are true.”

“Finish your omelet,” Sam commanded, “And don't you dare get up until it's gone. I'll go pay.”

“What are you, my mother?” grumbled Steve, but quietly and when Sam was well away.

Speculation was rampant in the room, both from the television reporters and various customers. Most agreed, however, on the basis of the new evidence: the girl had to be dead. Steve prayed they were wrong. If it was Bucky, he must have tried to take her to a hospital. She would turn up, and soon. She had to.

“You realize,” said Sam as he came back to the table, “That nobody is going to answer any of our questions.”

“I have the address of the nearest emergency room to the school.”

“Damn it, Steve,” grumbled Sam as they headed out to the truck, “One day you are going to say, 'You know what, Sam? I really should have listened to you about twenty minutes ago.' Thing is, I think that might happen just after we get arrested.”

“We're not going to get arrested. Don't be ridiculous.”

“Then you better let me drive, because Captain America always gets pulled over for being famous.”

“Do you know-”

“You're navigator,” Sam informed him.

Handing over the keys, Steve thought irritably that it was not his fault that every police officer in the whole country spotted him from ten cars back. Definitely weird, though. It was not as if the back of his head had a symbol on it or anything. They never even had anything to say either, just thanked him for his service.

“I'll tell you one thing, Cap,” his friend said as he pulled out of the parking lot, “I'm pretty jealous. I mean, I didn't go up there and fight a guy with a metal arm, but I did actually help out. But nobody ever notices me. I could put those wings on, and I bet people would say, 'Who's that weirdo following Captain America around? Is that Hawkeye or something?' Maybe I need a superhero name. I don't know if Falcon is going to cut it. I mean, two guys with bird names; people are bound to get mixed up.”

“Sam, you needed to take a left at that light,” Steve sighed.

“And you couldn't have said this before the light?”

“I wasn't raised to interrupt people.”

“You can interrupt for important things! Like where the hell am I supposed to go now?”

“Turn left at the next light, we'll just intercept the original course.”

While Sam grumbled about people who kept vital information to themselves, Steve looked out into the darkening streets. Bucky would have dropped her off and ran, he was sure. The question would be where. First, however, he had to see if he could find out why Bucky had been there at all. Stephanie might know. He had not even seen a picture of the little girl, he realized with a jolt. This adventure was about to get a lot harder, especially if he wanted to pull off what he hoped would get them in to talk with the kid. It would be worth it, though. He would find Bucky, take him to sanctuary and start healing him. Just once, he was going to be the caretaker.


	5. Dust Devil

Stevie woke up in a sweat and terrified. Even then she did not feel fully aware, as if someone had put a while veil inside of her head. Thoughts came so slowly. It was dark, and yet at the same time, there was light. Was it morning then? It must be time to get up and do downstairs to see- Mom? Where was Mom? She needed her, needed her right now!

“Mom! Mom!” Although she thought she was shouting, she could hardly hear herself. She had to get up, get out, get away.

There was a weight on her chest, and a stranger's voice saying, “No, no, no. Just stay there. Just- he'll be back soon, and we'll make it all go away.”

Possibly the least comforting way to wake up, she decided, forcing her eyes open. It was not as simple as it normally was. The light was too bright, and there was an awful stench reaching her nose, like the mixing of metal and chemical. Again, she attempted to lever herself up.

“Whoa, hey. I am not kidding. Just- easy, easy. You'll hurt yourself.”

This time the push was not gentle enough. Stevie nearly choked on the nausea inducing anguish that brought the blackness over her vision like an enveloping fog swallowing the peak of a mountain. Thinking in poetry could only mean that something was very wrong, she thought as she gasped for air around the pain. Maybe Emerson had processed stuff that way, but she was only almost eleven.

The next touch was so light she nearly missed it. But the song, the melody- she could never mistake it. A brief descent, then a rise to preface later heights, and then another gentle descent. But her mother had a much higher voice, so who was singing quietly?

“Sleep my babe, and peace attend you, all through the night. Guardian angels God will send thee, all through the night. While the drowsy hours are creeping; while the weary world is sleeping; I'll be here, my love watch keeping, all through the night.”

Although the pain only retreated slightly, Stevie focused her attention on the tender lullaby. Her breathing settled, and then her sight returned. It was still over-bright, and she could, at best, squint, but she saw two men standing over her. One was wearing some kind of smock and now standing well back in the shadows, but she knew the other- kind of. Earlier she had almost smashed into him, and he had spun her around behind him. Everything else was a little fuzzy still. But she thought she knew his face, and that sorrowful expression that probably would instigate any grandmother to bring out the soul-soothing sweets.

She reached up clumsily to touch his chin. Rough stubble caught her fingers before he brought up a hand to hold hers. So he had been the man singing her mother's lullaby, most likely.

“Stay,” he told her, and Stevie reflexively grabbed at his hand.

“Don't panic,” advised the other man. “I'm just going to sedate you-”

Only the heavy hand on her chest kept Stevie in place. Fear turning her stomach into a hard knot, she shook her head. The singer put her hand down at her side, and repeated,

“Stay.”

“But-” she said, but the singer shook his head.

“You need to stay there.”

“And it really is time for lights out,” asserted the other man. He was pulling objects out of a sack: metallic objects- no, sharp metallic objects, gleaming with cleanliness. What were they going to do to her? Stevie did not mean to, but she was so scared, she started to cry. It was silent, and she struggled to stop, hating the tickle of tears seeping into her ears.

“She'll be a lot better once I fix this,” said the apparent doctor, but not to her. “It's just shock.”

“Shock kills people,” Stevie said quietly. She knew that, knew it in ways other people might never, ever experience.

Nodding, the doctor said, “And that is why you have to be still and let me sedate you. If I can't get you all sewn up- well, I won't be the only dead one, I'm sure.”

Thinking that sentence through frightened Stevie, but he already was holding a mask over her face. “Now, you're going to breathe this for a little bit, and then you'll start falling asleep. Don't worry, your father picked an excellent doctor, if I do say so myself.”

Before she could turn her head to look, the singer put his cold hand on her forehead. “Be still.”

“I'm scared,” she admitted, stupidly. Two complete strangers were standing over her, proposing to knock her out and do who knew what. Go on, tell them they are going to have you wetting your pants in a minute, she scolded herself. What a brilliant move.

“Put the mask on her.” Before Stevie could panic, he knelt slightly and took her right hand. “Everything is going to be okay, Steffy.”

Taking a shaky breath, Stevie stopped fighting. She had not been Steffy since Captain America had become her favorite superhero. Only her mother and one other person would know that nickname. Even her mom's stalker, Mr. Perry, had no idea. So that meant this man was no stranger at all.

“Daddy,” she said quietly, “Promise me you're not leaving.”

“I'm right here,” he said.

The mask pressed firmly over her mouth and nose, the doctor directed, “Okay now, count backwards from fifty. It won't take long.”

She would rather ask a mountain of questions, like why did her belly hurt, or how did her father even find her? Mom had always said he would come for her one day, but Stevie had started to think that was a pretty story, like Santa Claus. Besides, Mom had insisted Stevie already knew her father, which was crazy. She had no memory of him at all. Except-

“You do know how to count backwards, right? I mean, education isn't what it used to be- ha- but it's pretty simple.”

To put an end to his nervous prattle, as Mrs. Cornelia Emerson would call it, she started, “Fifty, forty-nine, forty-eight, forty-seven. . .”

Somewhere around twenty-nine, she began to feel fuzzy and light. Reflexively, she squeezed the hand holding hers. He had said he would be there when this was over. Everything was going to be okay, he promised. But it never could be. Did he not know? Her eyelids were too heavy, and she was losing count. Maybe he did not know about-

Softly, he kissed her forehead, like she was a tiny baby again. “Sleep, Steffy. It's okay. Don't cry anymore.”

“But,” she mumbled, tongue thick and clumsy. He simply stroked her hair with his free hand. It was too much to fight. When she stopped drifting away into comforting gray, she would tell him about the horrible thing. Then he would understand that it was too late to make anything okay.

She could hear him singing to her again, soft and beautiful, “Sleep my babe and Heaven hold you, all through the night. In the arms of love enfold you, all through the night. While the gentle starlight's streaming; while the moon is softly gleaming, I'll be near to guard your dreaming, all through the night.”


	6. Freshet

“He's here,” the security guard said to the intercom.

“Send him in,” came the static-laden reply. Over sixty years and still this place had barely improved. Poor lighting, shoddy electrical, and technology that was probably almost as old the first world war. As far as he could make out, the bricks were now holding the mortar together, instead of the usual way around.

But the security was the worst. How many of their people had he simply snapped the necks of? No one had yet thought to put someone in the way who was more capable. There had not even been a weapon search, or metal detector. It was as if they intended he massacre everyone there.

“Schmidt?” his escort asked of a technician. The woman jerked her head back toward the western end of the lab, and then turned her attention back to a microscope.

Garroting the man was all too easy once they rounded the corner. He left him slumped outside an empty cubicle and carried on alone. Why bother showing him in when he knew the way? Such a waste.

The young woman in the room waiting for him noticed him at once. She turned and smiled gently. Unlike the others here, either afraid, stupid or contemptuous, the look she was giving him glowed with honest affection.

“I did tell you, you don't have to kill the guards,” she said in a tone of mild reproof.

He did not answer, simply awaited her command. Lovely hands guided him to the chair, and he felt his cock begin to harden. He knew what this was for, and he could hardly keep from pulling her down on top of him, stripping her of lab coat and clothes until he could have every last inch of her flesh pressed to his.

“One last sample,” she told him. “This one is for the baby.”

Already? Surprised, he looked up into her black eyes and received a knowing smile in reply. She turned away to the desk. While she prepared a container, she enlightened him.

“Yes, they're ready now. The experiments had excellent results, so they moved up the time table. I suppose you and I won't be meeting like this again.”

The cadence of her voice suggested there would be more speech, but when she faced him again, she stopped. He enjoyed the way she blushed as she eyed his body. Waiting was unbearable, and he felt like a chained animal as she paused. Finally, she said quietly,

“You don't have to be nude. But-” She bit her lower lip and then tried to assume a professional manner once more. “Of course, if this is more comfortable, then by all means. Whatever you need.”

“I need you,” he told her. She nodded and got to her knees. But this was not what he meant. Knowing she allowed him much more freedom, he caught her face in his hands and tugged her chin up until he could reach her plump lips. She had put on some sort of lip gloss earlier, and he could taste fake strawberry when he ran his tongue over her hot skin. Another tug of his hands and he had enough leverage to pull her up into his lap.

“Wait,” she commanded, and he had to stop. It was good to see her panting as hard as he was, though. She backed up and he felt the whine come to his throat unbidden. He needed her. Why was she holding him back?

“It's- oh, I know. I'll give you anything else, but what we did last time- we can't.” Running her hands through her light hair, she seemed to gather her thoughts, and then explained, “They chose me to carry the baby. I can only get pregnant for that.”

The baby inside of her- he caught his breath against the image of her carrying that precious life. His dream. Of course she would stop him, but, oh, that thought made him want her all the more. She was doing something like this for him, for the hope that she would give him something that she wanted in kind. He knew she loved him, knew that she would likely cry again if they did what he desired thinking he did not feel the same. Sometimes she was no smarter than the guards outside.

“I need you,” he repeated, catching her fluttering hands. “All of you.”

“But I-”

She responded to his careful tugging all the same, and her lips parted in anticipation as he drew her in. He did not have the strength of mind to hold her there and make her feel the same frustration he did. Instead, he mashed his mouth to hers, sloppily. Despite his lack of finesse, she opened her mouth to his tongue and gave him the start of what he so craved.

“Jillian,” he breathed after running his lips up along the line of her jaw to her right ear, “I want to be a part of you again.”

A sweet gasp of shock told him that she believed he had forgotten. But how could he forget a woman who surrendered so easily to his needs? He knew she loved him, from the first “sample” she had collected with such tender care. But he had fallen into her dark eyes at the same time, drowning under the weight of her devotion and coming to know his own heart: no longer piercingly empty, kindled back to life at her first delicate touch accompanied by the whisper,

“He's alive, James. We can bring him back.”

No one could ever give him such a precious treasure again. And yet, here she was before him, saying that she would fulfill a dream he had never believed possible to realize. Her love was so selfless, so heart-breakingly pure, he could not fight his own need to return that passion. What he had to offer was only a speck compared to the all encompassing sphere, and yet he knew she would take it as though it was equally desirable.

“If- if you want that,” she began, and he raced to assure her,

“I want all of you wrapped around me, Jillian.”

Trembling a little, she stood up. He, glued to the chair, followed her with longing eyes. Would she deny him at last? Was this one request too far?

But no, she was coming back, with little silver packets in her hand. Two of them she dropped on the floor as she knelt again between his thighs. Watching her every movement hungrily, he was confused by her actions. What was the packet for?

“If we're going to- to do this, then you'll need a condom,” she said, voice wavering a bit. “I know it isn't very sexy, but it'll keep you from getting me pregnant.”

How could she claim it was unattractive when she slid the latex down over his aching cock? It might not be as intense as her warm skin directly against his, but he was no less aroused. And the thought of arousal reminded him as she stood up that she would need preparation too. Grabbing her again, he pulled her down.

“I have to undress,” she tried to claim, but he was already pushing the lab coat from her shoulders and reaching for the bottom of her blouse.

This time he did not fumble with the clasp of her bra, settling for pushing the cups up and over her breasts, so he could pull the whole monstrous thing over her head. The trousers were more difficult, because he did not want to let her go lest she decide he was still moving too swiftly. So he slid a hand under her panties with the fly unzipped and made her writhe over his fingers until she melted into his side. Then he had her nude at last.

While she wrapped a hand around his cock, he put his lips to a breast and savored the soft flesh under his tongue. His fingers again found their way between her legs and she began to grind against his hand. But her perfect technique made it too good to linger here. Turning the tables, he slid her from his leg onto the chair, pulling until her ass was almost off of it. Now they could be one, in the way he had wanted the moment he had seen her again.

“James,” she breathed, and he was deep inside of her. So hot, so tight. Each thrust of his hips felt so intense, as if he had never known anything better. He thought he could not last in this bliss, but when she suddenly tightened around him and dug her fingers into his shoulder, he knew he had beaten her at least. Then there were those precious blank moments where nothing but the pleasure mattered. Still, that release was not enough and he pulled her back against him when she started to ease away.

“Again?” she asked in amazement, and then gasped, “Oh, wait James, we can't.”

“I want you,” he growled, refusing to let her go.

“I-oh! God, James! You need- you need another condom. Please, just, mmm! It doesn't take long, I swear. Oh!”

He had no intention of stopping, even for a moment, but she put one finger to his lips and reminded him tenderly, “You promised, James. Remember? A condom, so I can carry your baby.”

It was so hard to pull out, knowing the pleasure he was denying himself. He had so little. Jillian was fast, though, and had them both ready in mere moments. Then, she paused, and asked softly,

“How do you want me, James?”

“Now,” he said, lifting her until her hips were level with his. Pushing her to the wall so that he hardly had to hold her up, he concentrated on returning to those heights he had left. And she was coming with him. She had closed her eyes, so he kissed his way back to her ear and whispered, “I want you to watch. It's you I want to see when I cum.”

“Oh, James,” she sighed, looking at him with teary dark eyes. He knew she did not believe him. In this moment, though, it was true. She was giving him the one thing he had ached for; how could he help loving her?

His howl of release was so deep, he thought he would tear himself apart with it. And she, so beautiful in his arms, fought for her own relief. This time, he pulled out quickly and dropped to his knees before her. No woman had ever made him want to do this, but he needed to watch her cum from his skill. Afraid his tongue was not experienced enough, he relaxed when she grabbed his hair and called out an incomprehensible mix of pleas and meaningless syllables. When she finally went limp, he coaxed her to join him, wrapping his body around her to keep her close.

“How soon?” he whispered in her ear. She smiled, he could hear it in her reply,

“Only weeks left now, I promise. Your baby will be within me then. They're hoping for a girl.”

A girl? He could hardly picture it. Would she have his eyes? Or his hair? And what piece of her would be Jillian's?

Sliding a hand up from his metal bicep to his cheek, she said sweetly, “She'll be beautiful, James. Don't worry.”

“And him?”

“Someday,” she affirmed. “It can't be much longer. Until then, you can have her all to yourself.”

Tucking his head between her neck and shoulder, he closed his eyes. Of course, that was not true. He was owned. If he saw her too much, they would take her away. But, just for a little while, he would savor the image: holding a tiny hand, and hearing a giggle that reminded him of a time long ago. And Jillian's smile, so he would never forget.


	7. Blizzard

With a sigh, Steve hauled himself up into the cab of the truck.

“No luck?” Sam asked.

“No. I don't understand. Bucky took her, so where is she? She would need a hospital.”

“Well, a doctor and supplies, at least,” said Sam, in the tones of someone in the inner sanctum of the temple of knowledge.

“What do you know?”

Shaking his head ruefully, he informed Steve, “You really know how to take all the wonder out of conversation. Anyway, that first hospital we went to? Big news story of the last fifteen minutes: someone broke in and stole a whole lot of medical supplies. A lot.”

“What- how did anyone even get in there without that being a big story until now?”

With a shrug, Sam said, “I don't know, exactly, but my dad always told me if you walk the walk, a lot of people will think you talk the talk too.”

Mostly, Steve was all right with modern slang, if some context was liberally applied to the words. After all, it was only 70 years past his own time. As long as he studied the situation, he usually came near to understanding the intent. Except in cases like this one.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I mean, if he strolled right in, took what he needed, and strolled right out, people might not have questioned it. Anyway, we don't know it's him for sure, because the security cameras were taken out. Could just be a doctor looking to score something to sell on the side, or an addict with medical know-how.”

Stopping himself from making the reflexive comparison, Steve instead focused on Sam's logic, “But you think it was Bucky.”

“Well, I don't have a list in front of me of what was taken, but like you said, it's the nearest hospital, and you don't think he would just let the girl die, so. . .” Shrugging again, Sam concluded, “It's worth a look, right?”

“Definitely,” agreed Steve.

While Sam fired up the truck again, Steve looked out into the rain-washed streets. It was well past dark, hours past when the girl would have needed medical attention, and they had already crossed the river in search of hospitals. Now they had to backtrack, and that would take them about an hour- more if Sam kept getting lost on the one-way grid of downtown. That was not his fault; the streets were a mess, designed to move traffic only in certain directions and God help anyone hoping for a straight shot in any direction.

Turning on the radio and spinning the dial through stations, Sam remarked, “You know, it's almost Christmas. So, aside from Bucky tied up in a nice red ribbon, what do you want this year?”

“Don't be silly,” Steve grumbled, shying away from that picture. “Anyway, Bucky isn't fond of red.”

“Not that I asked,” grinned Sam. “Don't duck the subject, my friend. I already missed Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, so you better give me something cheap. Otherwise, you are going to try out fluffernutter, no matter your protests.”

“Peanut butter and marshmallows are not meant to be combined!”

“So you think. I am telling you, your mouth will thank you.”

Barely refraining from questioning what other part of him had the ability to express gratitude, Steve stared out the window again. This was not a place known for having what Steve thought of as a real Christmas, with snow and caroling, and the possibility of riding a sled down a hill much too steep and icy to be considered safe. It would be nothing like the Christmases he had had with Bucky.

They had been fairly close all their lives, and shared presents like brothers, only with moderately less bloodshed. It was only after Steve started to realize that ladies were not willing to settle for an artistic skinny kid that their relationship became deeper. Bucky never mentioned it, not even in jest, but he did not act surprised when Steve mentioned this problem. He just sighed and said,

“Well, you know, some dames don't know a good thing when they see it.”

Then, somehow, they had tumbled into something together. What had Bucky said about it? A kind of “just for now,” fling? It was not as though either of them were bent that first time, nor any other. For whatever reason it had just seemed convenient, a way for them to hold out for the right lady. Yet. . . Steve sank into memory, blurring out Sam's mutters about the follies of traffic flow management.

There had been that Christmas, he and Bucky sharing a tiny apartment in a tenement that had not seen any improvement, ever. Hell, even the toilet was down the hall, and they had to go down to the courtyard to get water in any good amount. Between them, they had about enough money to keep from starving and pay all their bills. In the summer, it was hotter than hell and all winter long, they both nearly froze. But they had each other, like Bucky had promised, to the end of the line.

Steve had come in from a mind-numbing day of bleakly searching for more work, something to last beyond the holidays. His size and asthma kept him from a lot of work that Bucky could have had, but Bucky worked like a horse already. For Steve, it was nothing but sweeping floors and wrapping presents. Christmas without his mom was harder every year, but at least this time Bucky would be there.

“Hey stupid,” Bucky greeted him when he came in, and Steve made a face.

“Shut up, stupider.”

“Oh, your wisecracks are as sharp as ever,” Bucky laughed. “Come here and warm up at the stove. I pinched coal for today, you know.”

“Too bad you couldn't pinch your appetite,” Steve teased, and Bucky gave a cocky grin.

“I could pinch a part of you, if you like. Even if it isn't your birthday.”

To hide his embarrassment, Steve snapped, “Shut up.”

Still grinning, Bucky got to his feet and pulled him in front of the stove. He took his coat and hat, and then tossed them onto the arm of their decrepit couch. With a smug look, he suggested,

“How about your shirt too? Wouldn't want it getting any dirtier, right?”

“Bucky,” but Steve was cut off by Bucky leaning in dangerously close.

“Would you believe that old bat next door actually went to visit family? You know, she's always telling us to keep it down when we're not doing anything. I wonder what it'd be like if we did do something. Loudly.”

Steve opened his mouth, but Bucky was much too fast for any feeble protests. Lips sliding over his cheek, fingers unbuttoning his shirt, his friend had Steve in the palm of his hand. Of course, that was a picture Steve never stopped imagining. Still, there were other neighbors and good reason to be clandestine about their relationship beyond even that.

“Do not even think about telling me no tonight,” Bucky murmured into the shell of his ear as he pushed the button-up shirt over Steve's shoulders. “Six months of waiting for this opportunity is more than enough. I want you, now.”

He pushed Steve back onto the couch, gently. Off went the undershirt, too. Kneeling, he ran his hands down Steve's scrawny chest and looked him over like a hard-won prize. To Steve that made little sense. Bucky was far more attractive- he could have been a movie star, and never lacked a willing lady in any situation. Yet, he preferred skinny little Steve.

With another wicked grin, Bucky ran his hand over Steve's crotch, chuckling at Steve's gasp. “You know what I love about this shithole? My sister never interrupts us anymore. So I can have you all to myself.”

“Bucky,” Steve groaned as his friend traced the outline of his cock with on lazy finger.

“Want something?” asked Bucky lightly. “Would you believe I found some oranges? Expensive as hell, but considering the season, I figure it's money well spent.”

Holy hell, why did Bucky tease him like this? As if Steve gave a shit about oranges while Bucky was massaging the lump in his trousers, looking up him with his naughty blue eyes. Right now he would much prefer moving things along to their natural conclusion and to hell with any nosy neighbors. But two could play at this game, right?

“I got some peppermint sticks from that last job. They're huge.”

The side of Bucky's mouth lifted in a partial sneer, “As big as your horsedick?”

Before Steve could ask him to not call it that, Bucky undid the fly of his trousers. Events blended a bit for several minutes until they were both naked on the couch, Bucky pressing his lips to Steve's. His hand was wrapped firmly around Steve's shaft, and he had sat back too far for Steve to repay him. Settling for second best, Steve kissed him back as ardently as he could mange.

“You know what I want tonight,” Bucky breathed. “Give it to me good, Steve.”

“Jesus, Bucky,” moaned Steve. “What about 'Merry Christmas?'”

“It is going to be merry as hell, Steve, just as soon as you give me the present I'm asking for.”

Pushing him up to the arm of the ratty sofa, Bucky nearly swallowed his dick. Steve had no idea how he did that. Even though he was not nearly as embarrassingly large as Steve was, Steve always found himself struggling to take much past the head in when he attempted to repay the favor. As for the things he did with his tongue. . . Heavenly was the only fitting description. If every man was as good at this as Bucky, Steve thought women would have to find their own solutions.

Distracting himself with philosophical debates was not working as well as it normally did. Steve felt like the next time Bucky ran his tongue along that little divot in the head of his cock, he would burst. It had been ages since they had been able to get beyond this point, and that promise had him irrevocably aroused. If he lost control now, he did not know if he could get hard again for hours. So although he loved the way Bucky took him deep and let his tongue play havoc on his sensitive base, Steve grabbed his lover's hair.

“Ready?” Bucky asked, his normally smooth voice roughened by desire.

“Yes,” panted Steve, and Bucky grinned.

“Watch me get ready then, Steve.”

He had a small tub of petroleum jelly, and the fact that it was out here instead of in the bathroom told Steve that his friend had probably been planning this since he got home. Maybe since the moment he found out their neighbor was stepping out tonight. And now he was about to put on one hell of a show.

Watching Bucky cover his fingers in the jelly, knowing exactly where they were going, tightened Steve's stomach. How the hell could an asshole be so goddamn alluring? But he knew how hot and tight it was, and that Bucky was preparing that asshole for his cock. The way Bucky sighed once two fingers were up inside of him, and the frantic humping of his hand was a sight Steve would risk discovery for, any and every time. With a grunt, a third finger joined the other two, and Steve's cock twitched in answer. Not much longer now, and it would feel so damn good.

Like always, Bucky was impatient. Steve just slowly slid his own hand over his cock, eyes devouring the sight of his best friend up on his hands and knees trying to cram in as many fingers as possible. He always insisted that Steve's dick was thicker even than that, which usually made Steve blush. He glanced down at his erect cock. Sure, he was bigger than Bucky, but he could not really be. . . well, not as big as a horse. Looking back at Bucky pumping nearly five fingers into his asshole, Steve dismissed the matter. Pretty soon, he would be pushing his dick into that tight ass.

“Fuck,” Bucky swore softly. “I can't wait anymore Steve. I gotta have you in me.”

Steve sat up now, feet firmly on the floor, and held his dick in his fist, waiting. Bucky passed him the jelly, and he took a healthy dollop. But it was his friend who spread it over his cock. If he was there, Bucky would stand for no other stroking Steve's dick. Given his demonstrably amazing technique in this arena, who was Steve to complain? That sneaky way he stroked up and then reversed his fist to stroke downwards just about left Steve senseless.

Finally, it was time for their main event. Too caught up in the pursuit of pleasure, Bucky settled for a quick grin before he slowly lowered his ass over Steve's cock. There was that tense moment before the cockhead popped through the ring of Bucky's asshole, and then they both groaned. By the time he had fully seated himself in Steve's lap, they both were locked in on only one goal.

Because of his asthma it was always Bucky doing most of the work, except for a few glorious days in early summer when Steve had felt on top of the world. Tonight, Bucky set the pace, and he wanted it fast. In spite of himself, Steve felt his hips rising to meet Bucky's. Panting together, wordless, they fucked in relative quiet.

So deep within Bucky that his balls felt the warmth of Bucky's ass, Steve wrapped an arm around Bucky and grabbed his dick. He knew he would not last much longer, and hearing Bucky groan loudly had him jerking his friend off frantically. He wanted to feel that hot fluid spilling down his fingers, just as he wanted to let his loose inside of Bucky.

“Yeah, Steve, stroke me like that.” Bucky turned his head back, piercing Steve with those beautiful eyes. “Are you almost there? Am I making you hot?”

“Yes,” moaned Steve and bit back another gasp when he felt Bucky tighten up in response.

Still being as quiet as possible, more from habit than anything else, Bucky was moving faster than ever over his cock, and Steve let his movement push his cock in and out of the ring of Steve's hand. If they were going to orgasm, it had better be together. This was Christmas, after all.

Only a minute later, Steve felt himself tense up. Not nearly as quiet as he meant to be, he groaned as he finally emptied himself into Bucky. For a moment or two more, Bucky kept going, and then he too stiffened. In Steve's fist, his cock pulsed and then Bucky took in a sharp breath. Hot fluid dribbled lightly over Steve's fingers, and he politely eased his grip.

Both breathing hard, Bucky relaxed back against him and Steve let his lips caress the warm skin of his friend's back. After a while, Bucky eased himself off of Steve's dick. He turned and planted a kiss on Steve's forehead. Then he disappeared into the washroom. When he came back, he tossed a wet washcloth at Steve. He had put on his union suit, a sure sign they were done for the evening. It was just as well.

“How's that for Merry Christmas?” Bucky asked with his cocky grin back in place.

Steve laughed. “It'll do.”

The real world intruded with a jerk on Steve's reminiscences. Turning his head to look at Sam, he got a string of annoyed curses. Then the veteran threw up his hands.

“I can't figure out this damn maze. I'm pulling over. You drive. At least if you get in a wreck, the cop'll let you off with a warning about being so damn handsome or something.”

“Yeah, sure,” muttered Steve. So much for Christmas. There would never be another like it.


	8. Virga

Stevie woke up tucked in tight against something quite warm. Fuzzier than ever, she reached out a hand, although it did little more than flop. Someone gently took it and placed it back on her chest. Quietly, a man asked,

“Are you awake?”

Sighing, she tried to nod. Her eyelids were much too heavy to open. There was a gentle brush of stubble against her forehead before someone kissed her lightly.

“Sleep now. You're safe.”

Safe? How could that be? She hardly knew what exactly that would entail. How long had it been? But when he put his arm around her, she weakly grabbed for it. There was a quiet clink, as if she had hit metal with her fingernails. He took her hand into his cold one and said softly,

“You need to rest Steffy, before we go.”

“Where?”

She did not hear his answer, though, before the soothing feel of his thumb on the back of her hand put her to sleep again. It seemed so brief, but things had changed enough when she roused herself that she knew it had been a little while. Still on her back, she was disinclined to move. Somewhere nearby, but far enough that she could not hope to see, there was a rhythmic thumping noise. Embarrassed, Stevie closed her eyes and tried to think of something to hum. Did people never stop doing that stuff? What was the point?

It took a good while for the noise to subside. Apparently there was a wind-down period. Basic Sex-Ed had not covered this, and no older kid had mentioned it in their casually vulgar conversations. She tried not to dwell on it too much. It was a natural function, right? Except that most of the upperclassmen had sniggered when the guest teacher had said that.

Exactly what or who she was expecting, Stevie could not say, but she was flabbergasted when her daddy came into the room. He stood at a sink and calmly washed his hands, as if he had not just been- it did not bear thinking about. All the same, Stevie was writhing and indeed, thinking. He was her father, after all. No, not father. Even though it was a baby word, daddy was still the right one. A daddy was someone you hoped for and dreamed of, much like she had been taught to do.

He turned when he finished, and caught her look. For a long moment he stared as though he had not anticipated her gaze. Recovering himself, he came to her side and said quietly,

“You're hungry.”

And she was, suddenly. Hungry and in a strangely distant way, in pain. There was not pain at that precise moment, but the suggestion that it had only gone out for a bit, and was certain to return in fifteen minutes or so. Maybe there was time to drink straight from the carton, but not enough to make a sandwich without being noticed.

“Grapes,” he announced, and she unthinkingly opened her mouth like a toddler. He fed her a few, one at a time until she turned her head away.

“I can feed myself,” she told him, surprised by the weak timbre of her own voice.

“When you can sit up again,” he agreed calmly.

What did that mean? Sure, she was tired and ached, but sitting up was child's play. But she was distracted by him as he went back over to the sink. He opened a prescription box and took out a short, thin, white stick. Returning to her side, he hesitated a moment before he told her,

“This will sting.”

He lifted her shirt- and it was not actually her shirt, she noticed now, but an adult size black T-shirt. Taking hold of her left thigh, he leaned in and held up the stick. Bracing herself, Stevie said “Ouch,” before he even poked her. But he merely carried on, jabbing her thigh. It certainly did sting, but almost as soon as she gasped, the pain was subsiding. She felt a little numb, and suddenly very tired.

“What was that?” she asked him. He put the box away and looked at her, almost as if he hardly knew her. She supposed that was true. Had they ever even seen each other before? It was hard to say. Stevie could only ever recall her mom talking about him, and she had not recognized him at all before.

“Morphine,” he answered after a long pause.

“Morphine? But that's for. . . bad stuff,” Stevie finished lamely.

“And you are badly hurt,” he reminded her, causing Stevie to look down at herself. Aside from the shirt, she did not see anything wrong.

Hand on her head, he asked, “Are you still hungry?”

“I can do it,” she tried to insist.

“No.” Holding up another grape, he looked prepared to wait until she behaved.

A handful more grapes followed the first bunch, but Stevie found herself fighting to keep her eyes open. Surely it was past noon the next day by now. To avoid sleeping any more than she already had, she tried to find something else to concentrate on. Although she was normally fairly astute and street-smart, she found herself asking him,

“What were you doing earlier? I heard. . . noises.”

Back to her as he tidied up, he said blandly, “Making sure no one gets to you.”

“Gets to me?” she repeated, confused. “Why?”

“Because they want to hurt you.”

“But-” Stevie stopped and thought it over, mind at a crawl. “I didn't know you could make people stop by doing that.”

Pulling over a dusty crate, he sat down, saying calmly, “You did the same thing to that bully.”

“What?! No, I did not. That's just. . . ew. I did not do anything. . . sexual to Annie.”

For a long moment they both stared at one another. Then, he told her, in the slow voice of one who wants to be perfectly understood, that he had done nothing like that at all. In growing horror, Stevie realized what he would think: that she knew about sex, and that she must have done it to think about it, and he would be very angry at her for it. No one wanted someone who thought that way. She had been warned.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” she babbled, “I know, I'm not supposed to think it. I didn't mean to, I'm so sorry. I won't do it again. Please don't. . . please don't be mad.”

As she trailed off, cringing, he watched her. Then, swiftly, he put his hand on her chest. Stevie flinched, in spite of herself. She knew, knew, she deserved whatever he intended to do. After all, she had been told about becoming that kind of girl.

“Steffy,” he said softly, “You know about sex?”

“Kind of,” she squirmed. “But not a lot, really! Please don't make me go down there. I didn't listen, I promise. Please, please, I'm not-”

“Steffy,” he said sharply, “I don't care that you know about sex. I only care if someone hurts you. I will never allow anyone to do that without making them pay.”

“But- but- I didn't- I'm not a-” she stumbled to a confused messy halt.

“Calm down,” he ordered, but not roughly. “Steffy, I am not angry with you.”

She looked away for a moment, trying to stop panicking. What was wrong with her that she blurted out all these stupid things? If she kept her stupid mouth shut he would never have known about that stupid health class, or the basement. All she had to do was keep her cool so he did not find out the rest. But she was an idiot, and spoiled goods anyway. What was left for her to make worse? He would dump her anyway. Nobody would want her like this. She had been warned.

“Steffy?” he asked softly.

She turned her head back toward him, so tired and lost. This hurt almost as much as losing her mother. He was surely about to tell her this was where he got off the ride, alone. Without meaning to do it, her voice cracked as she responded,“Yes?”

“We are going home,” he told her. “And no one will ever get away with hurting you again.”

“But-”

“You need to sleep,” he continued, brusquely.

That was probably true. All the same, home? A wonderful, fleeting sense of hope wrapped its arms around her heart, only to be yanked away by the merciless claws of reality. How could he possibly think he could take her there? It was gone, surely. If not torn down, or ripped apart inside, it could not belong to Stevie any longer. She barely even remembered it, less clearly than she could recall her mother's face.

“Daddy, the house is-” She broke off, seeing his eyebrows come down.

“You need to rest.” Now he was more firm, lifting his hand from her chest to pull a light blanket over her.

“But-”

“No!” His rage was sudden and terrifying. “I said rest!”

Despite being nearly eleven years old, Stevie burst into tears. It was mortifying. She was no baby, and certainly not some bug-eyed waif too stupid to know if it was grandmother or a ravenous talking wolf in the bed. Why had she even tried to push her point past when he told her to stop? That was something for kids who did not know what they had coming to them.

Crying hurt, her body scrambled to tell her. Those deep sobs were bringing more than snot and saltwater. Each shaky breath was causing a wave of pain in her lower abdomen, but she could hardly stop, not with the sharp pangs bringing more tears to her eyes.

“Steffy, Steffy,” she was aware of him saying. Then, he had crawled onto the bed with her, and held on tightly.

How long had it been since she had let someone hold her? Stevie knew better than to let anyone get close. They had always left, anyway. Now she was being abysmally idiotic, thinking that just being her daddy was enough to trust that he would stay; that he could, somehow, make it all better. It would never be better, and she would end up alone.

The fit left her too exhausted to do anything else. Lying in his arms as he gently stroked her forehead and tried to mumble reassuring things, Stevie just gave up. He probably did not mean to lie when he told her they were going to be fine. He had no idea what she had become.


	9. Stationary Front

At moments of pause like this one, he could admit having this child cling to him for comfort stirred a part of himself he had not dared to believe remained. Yes, it twisted itself around like a snake due to the shape of his mind now, but that longing to protect, to preserve, to cherish remained. The way she would choose metal or flesh as if there was no implication of choice at all, for both were born equal in her heart; he could not even tease out what it meant to him yet. But those tears, that painful fear he knew like the scars in his own flesh- no, they would not win. She had not yet reached the empty shell he had been, and he would die to prevent that metamorphosis.

While she slept restlessly, so unlike her angelic beginnings, he calmly and methodically dealt with the issues brought up. Not only had she confirmed in her sputtering flood his own dark imaginings, but the doctor had provided the physical evidence for what he had seen in her eyes. It was enough to bring in the guilty. No matter their guise, he knew their kind on sight. At night they slept in perfect repose, dreaming only with joy, their remorseless souls knowing no perturbation over the daily depravity they indulged in. Flames would cleanse the wicked, if nothing could spare the bodies they had sought to own.

He let his true arm reach back to touch her, as gentle as he could make himself. Her skin was warm, but only beneath the blanket. There had not been enough to recover, much was missing, but it was not far to home. Once there, she could have the rest necessary to regain her strength. Then, at last, they could truly go home.

Just running the tips of his fingers along her arm brought back memories. By now most of them were in tatters, but slowly he was finding the tears and pulling them back together. Sometimes they were of her mother, Jillian, or of the baby he had left, others. . . He let out a sigh. She would need to know him soon. How she would feel curdled his gut. Although thus far sweeter than the first rains, he understood everyone had their line. But how good they could be together! Whole, and free.

When the siren punctured his curled up mind, he glanced back at her. No, she slept on. Poor exhausted baby. Aware that he had been the target, he locked the doors.

Killing, he reminded the part of him wrought by careful torture, was not necessary. It would only endanger the little one. Play it smart, keep calm. This was surely routine. It would pass, and then they would go on. Minor preparations, and at last, sleep. How many days had it been? She was worth all of them.

The officer raised his light slightly and asked, “You all right?”

Slowly, he nodded. “Yes.”

“It's pretty late to pull over way out here. Can I see your-”

Then the tiny voice from behind him, “Daddy?”

His heart sank. The morphine. Knowing intimately how much pain was tearing through her at this very moment, he had to wrestle with his desire to strike out for her. This man had not caused it. This one could live.

Shining his light more obtrusively, the patrolman remarked, “Oh, you have a child. Long journey for you both, then?”

Finding his way through this struggle was making his words shaky. “Not- we will be there in a few miles. I- we needed. . . rest.”

“Daddy,” she called to him, voice fragile. He could not keep still, but turned toward her. “I'm cold.”

Blue lips, pale face, trembling limbs! How could he ease this when he had nothing? The blanket was not good enough. They had stolen from her, but he could not give what she needed- not yet. It was too much, too far, too soon!

“I'm sorry,” he whispered brokenly. It cut him, yet another wound he could not reach. He had to take her, to flee from this nightmare world.

The policeman gave them both a long look, and then ordered, “Don't go anywhere, all right?”

He did not even acknowledge it, locking eyes with his little angel. How could he fail her so quickly? Was he too damaged? He had thought that hearing was enough, that loosening his chains would free her. Now she lay before him, in need of more than he could give, trapping them both, leaving them equally powerless. Where were his promises now?

She reached a hand, and he took it. There was a tremble of a smile, a flash of another woman's face over her own. Then, she said quietly, “I just want you, Daddy.”

Surely he had known agony before, but this tore his very core to shreds. How could he be enough? Yet she seemed so sure, as if it was clearer than the first star.

Here, however, was not safe, as illustrated by the officer's return. After a tap on the window, a dark bundle was proffered. The accompanying words were a mixture of lies and truth, and a confusing tangle to one who had served only evil.

“Looks like she needs this.” True. “I got it for my nephew.” Lie. “Still, I'd like for you to have it. It'll be put to good use.” Completely honest. “I'm sure it would have just been trashed, anyhow. I mean, he's got plenty of blankets.” A bigger lie yet, and somehow mixed with the truth.

He forgot his manners and tongue both when he saw that symbol. The circles. The star. But she cut through the blurry reel with her quiet voice.

“What is it, Daddy?”

Unfolding the bundle, he let himself turn and tuck her in lovingly. “For you.”

She looked down at it and smiled, a more stable one than before. “It's Captain America! He's my favorite superhero.”

“He's got a lot of fans, that's for sure, young lady.” True, again.

“Thank you,” she said to the police officer, shyly.

“You two just take care now. If you need a place to hold over for the night, there's a Denny's just off the highway, about, oh, three miles ahead. Pull into the parking lot and I'll let my fellow officers know to check up on you all to make sure you're safe. Better than the side of the highway, any road.”

Using the adjustment of the blanket's plush folds to cover the slender white stick in his fingers, he nodded. “We'll do that.”

They still had a good way to go, but he pushed himself to it. Beyond the threat of discovery, she needed the shelter and warmth of a real house. This vehicle would no longer suffice.

Even through his somewhat clumsy entry, she slept on. The rest, something he had never been given, would heal her flesh. Hopefully, her heart was not as damaged as he dreamed with his eyes open. This place, he noticed as he laid her on the soft bed, had been well kept. There were credit cards in the same hiding place, as well as identification for them both. He lingered on hers, taking in her full name with relish. These cards were not a lie. How good that truth looked in bold lettering.

She called to him, silently. With all the locks in place and the van disposed of, he could give in. He stood a moment in the doorway, lost in the promise of her face. Like her mother, like her father, like him. Look, his mind called, at her darling snub nose. And that stubborn chin! Drifting down from her dark blonde hair, the light creeping in over the soft cover given by that man hooked him. Blue, red and white swam out of focus for a moment as a whisper traced through his thoughts.

“They aren't just nice colors. They mean something.”

Once he had her tucked in beside him, he traced the design with shaking fingers. A flashy salute, dancing girls, guns, and laughter. Her favorite? Did she already know? Jillian would not have told her. They had agreed on that point. Safety.

He could not keep administering morphine, however. It was time for the gentler solutions. So long as he kept himself perfectly on her schedule, she would feel no pain. That was his part. His burden.

But now, in the dark of night and the shelter of home, he could relax as well. No one would remember this place, and once they were truly home, no one would find them at all. Slumber unbroken could take him, at least until this little one politely tapped his arm for reassurance. Leaving it to rest on her lightly, he admitted that he hoped she would ask for that soon. He drifted away, curious to see what she could recall of this place. Would it be a haven for her one more time?


	10. Advection

Friends were wonderful, of course. They could dish out sympathy, advice, and no one kicked butt in your name better than your best pal. Everyone needed at least one, because it helped people get by. Friends could share interests, bicker, or advise. They might recommend new shows, or pull you out of obsessions to deal with the real world.

Then there were friends like Tony Stark, who remotely set his ringtone to something involving ladies' backsides every few days, just to let Steve know he remembered him. Two days of constant fiddling with his security settings had only given Steve a headache. He set it to vibrate, and went back to staring at the picture of the little girl.

Stephanie Rogers had apparently pulled a face in every school picture, and it had to be intentional. The result was, of course, that she would be almost impossible to identify in person, and that she looked like trouble. What was completely uncertain was why Bucky had such an interest in her that he kept her with him rather than dropping her off at a hospital.

“What did he see?” mumbled Steve, looking down at the kiddo.

“What did who see? And where?” Sam put down his coffee and added thoughtfully, “Man, there are never enough questions when it comes to what you've been up to.”

Steve was about to roll his eyes when he caught sight of the woman walking in the door. “Sam.”

“I know, I called her. And before you start talking to me about discussing this stuff with 'outsiders,' you know she's never an outsider to me. You two almost emptied my pantry for quote unquote breakfast, remember? I bet she decimates buffets.”

“Steve,” Natasha said coolly as she slid into a chair at their table. Now Sam's suggestion of a table with four chairs made more sense. He had been expecting company.

Honestly, Steve could not say he was surprised. Sam might be new to the superhero gang, but he knew how to take care of his friends. Riley had been a lucky guy. Most of the time, Steve appreciated the mothering. It reminded him of better times. Right now, though, he was more than a little ticked off.

“Nat-” She cut him off by dropping a packet of papers on the table beside his cup of coffee.

“Here's what I dug up on Stephanie, but it isn't much. More interesting is what I found out about her mother. Jillian Schmidt used to be on SHIELD's payroll, up to about five years ago, when she died. The thing is, nothing in the files tell us what she was doing, beyond her job title.”

In spite of himself, Steve leaned forward to look at the part of the packet she was offering, with a woman's photograph on the top. “Which was?”

“Genetic Technician.”

Now, he had spent hours, possibly days, late at night learning about the 21st century. He had poured through books, manuals, taken that special course SHIELD had put together, and even just cruised the internet without guidelines (once, just once). Unfortunately, all of that meant nothing when it came understanding what in God's name a genetic technician was. Rather than bother to do a dance, he gave his friend a look.

Natasha smiled. “The title itself is probably meaningless. SHIELD hid a lot of people with phony jobs. She doesn't have a degree in genetic engineering like she ought to if she were a technician. She also doesn't have a life before her application to SHIELD- at least, not a real one.”

“Criminal,” suggested Sam.

“HYDRA,” insisted Steve.

“Maybe both, but- and this a big one, so stop picking your nose, Sam.”

“I wasn't,” Sam said, putting both of his hands n his lap. “Isn't a man allowed to scratch an itch?”

Another smile, with a hint of smirk. “Jillian approached Director Fury.”

“How do you know?”

Natasha plucked out a small piece of paper. “Memos are a girl's best friend. That's Fury's scrawl on the bottom, but it's anyone's guess what it actually says.”

Sam glanced at it, and told her, “Bullshit.”

“What?”

“It says 'bullshit,'” Sam explained. “When I worked rescue, sometimes the medics at the base would ask me to get medicine from supply and write the name down for me- in terrible scrawl. You learn scribblese.”

“Okay. Then why would he write that?” Steve asked.

“Obviously, he didn't like what he heard,” Natasha said slowly. “But that begs the question: what did she tell him?”

Steve looked at Jillian's picture as an artist. She had light blonde hair, less yellow and more cornsilk. Piled up in an elegant bun, set off by austere clothing and simple pearls on her neck, she looked much classier to him than most ladies now. Her eyes were nearly black, round and perfectly symmetrical, and her jaw soft. Just a slim hint of a smile brightened up her pale complexion, but he thought she looked more focused than amused, as if she had caught on to a joke.

Then, thoughtfully, he compared Jillian with Stephanie. He shook his head. No way were those two related. Maybe the hair was close to the same hue, or Stephanie was too young to resemble her mother, but he sincerely doubted it. Kids tended to have the same face shape, eyes, or nose- heck, Steve had been told since he could remember that he had his mom's ears. There was always something a relative or friend could point to and exclaim, “They really have the same shape body part you do!”

“What?” Natasha asked, giving him a look that suggested she had every idea what he was up to, and a few of her own for later use.

“Stephanie doesn't look like her mom. At all.”

“Well, that isn't too surprising,” Sam said. “I look like my mom more than my dad. Happens all the time.”

Natasha took the phone and the picture from him. Leaning over, Sam eyed the portraits as well. Slowly, they swiped through the school pictures. As he leaned back in his chair, Steve contemplated a slice of apple pie. The chocolate had not been so bad, and this place was supposed to be known for pie. Not all of his budget could be spent on treats, however.

Instead, Steve took the rest of the packet and thumbed through. Aside from vague positive comments on her performance reviews, and a general note that she had not taken the field test and therefore was ineligible to carry a weapon, he gleaned very little. Even her birth date was unrecorded.

“I guess you could be right,” Sam said finally, but almost immediately shook his head again. “I don't know how you're so sure from all of those goofy faces.”

Nodding, Natasha said, “It's a possibility, but her records indicate only Jillian as her birth mother. I have the address of her foster parents. Maybe they know something.”

“Foster parents?”

With a shrug, she told him, “Jillian died about five years ago. Her obituary is online.”

“I have a question,” Sam said, and held up his hand like he was in school.

“Don't do that,” Natasha ordered. “You're not five.”

“Fine. Look, if Jillian Schmidt is her mom- and I'm not saying she is, Steve- how come Stephanie is Stephanie Rogers? Especially if there isn't a dad.”

Puzzled, Steve inquired, “How do you know there's no dad?”

“Uh, foster parents usually only happen if a. there are no relatives, or b. there are no relatives who fit the criteria of not being in jail or dead.”

Crossing her legs, Natasha agreed, “That is a good question. And SHIELD would have known if Jillian was married while on the job. Stephanie is listed as her daughter, that's how I found the connection initially.”

“Shouldn't spies not tell each other about family?”

With a roll of her eyes, she told Steve, “Yeah, because any two people who work together are not going to, at some point, share a funny or dramatic story about their personal life. According to Clint, it was once policy to not discuss your family, but bad guys don't follow those rules. Pierce got rid of that requirement. SHIELD could take better care of its own if it wasn't hiding things from itself.”

“Aside from that whole HYDRA thing,” Sam added.

HYDRA, thought Steve to himself. At this point, they had a leg up on the remnants of SHIELD. How long had they been preparing for this moment? Like all bad guys, they would have splintered, and maybe even were working at cross-purposes. That could be wishful thinking, though. After all, seventy years was a long time to work out a master plan. Everyone would have their part.

“Sam says you think this was your friend, the one who tried to kill all of us, with greater or lesser prejudice per target.”

“He was probably the target of the attack,” Steve explained. “I can't imagine HYDRA doesn't want him back, if they can get him. Stephanie must have gotten caught in the crossfire.”

“Maybe,” she said, doubt dripping off each syllable. “But what, then, is your friend doing out here, lurking in front of school buildings? And if he did take Stephanie, why?”

With a heavy sigh, Steve admitted, “I don't know.”

“Ever notice a tendency for him to look at little girls?”

“Only his sister and her friends, so he could make fun of her properly later. And he taught her how to punch.”

“That wasn't what I meant,” Natasha noted. “But fine. Our big questions are: is it Bucky we're looking for, and does he even have Stephanie?”

“What do you mean, 'does he even have Stephanie?' Of course he does. She's not in any hospital.”

“She could be dead. With his training, he would have disposed of her body.”

“Then it would have been found, most likely,” Sam told her. “They've been looking for it, since it's been more than seventy-two hours. Something about all this bugs me. Okay, a lot of things. Like, why haven't her parents come forward and talked to the news or held a press conference? That's a normal thing, right? Even foster parents would do that. And, presuming she did die, why wouldn't Bucky just drop her any old where? You said he never bothered to be very stealthy about the bodies, just the hit itself, right?”

“True,” mused Natasha. “So, let's go answer one of those questions. We have her address. Let's find out what kind of parents don't bother to plead for the safe return of their child.”

The homeless kind, as it happened. When they turned the corner off one of the city's busiest streets, the hole was clearly visible, as was the starkly blackened ground. Letting his breath out at the house numbers on either side, Steve turned to look at Natasha.

“Now what?”

“You two stay here. I'll get some information.”

“Wait, I get why he can't go- he's the worst liar in the history of lying, but what about me?” demanded Sam.

“Thank you,” Steve muttered.

“A girl on her own usually gets more intelligence,” she replied with a saucy wink. Of course, there was very little about Natasha that was not sassy.

While Sam disappeared into his smartphone, Steve looked at the neighborhood. Not exactly run down, but showing some strain here and there in the form of peeling paint and gardens of moss on roofs. Obviously not a ritzy place. There was not a lot of room in the yards to play, either. All of them were empty, but that made sense. It was before three on a school day. The moms were probably enjoying the quiet.

Natasha was back quickly. She shut the door of the truck, and gave him a look. It was not a good one.

“What?”

“I have bad news, and worse news. The bad news is, no one can ask her foster parents anything. They were burned alive two nights ago, probably around 3am.”

“And the worse news?” demanded Sam.

“I think I know why Stephanie didn't end up at home. The police found. . . evidence in the basement. Video, pictures- those people never should have been parents, let alone state-certified.”

Looking from one friend to the other, Steve weighed his options. Whatever this was implying, it certainly sounded bad, so he probably did not want to know. However, he had to.

“What do you mean video and pictures?”

There was an exchange of looks. Judging by the eyebrow flurries, it was a contest of who would explain. Whatever he was about to be told was really bad, then. Maybe they had beaten Stephanie? But why take pictures? Or make a movie out of it?

“All right, I'll tell him. But you own me one. A big one!” Sam insisted. Natasha raised an eyebrow again.

“Only if he understands you, big boy.”

Steve sighed. “Is this something I'm going to have to look up?”

“No.” Natasha shook her head.

“Yes,” Sam decided at the same time.

“That is not something a man looks up on the internet, Sam. Especially America's Golden Boy.”

“But-”

“No.”

“Well, then you tell him. I don't like being the one to ruin people's world views.”

There was a certain narrowing of the eyes as Natasha asked, “So, I'm good at it?”

“All right, you two. Somebody just tell me what is going on- was going on?”

To make up for his unintentional comment, the ex-paratrooper took control of the conversation. He seemed very uncomfortable with the subject, however. When Sam finally got around to the point, Steve felt sucker-punched. Who would do something like that? And how could they get away with it?

In answer to that question, Natasha cocked her head and asked, “Didn't you tell me there was a guy down the hall who used to beat his wife? And no one did anything about it, so one day when you were twelve-”

“This is way more than giving a grown woman a black eye,” Steve hastily said, not wanting to hear another recounting of Bucky coming to save him from his over-zealous nature. “This is a child!”

“People are what they are,” Natasha said with cool shrug. “Not their problem, not their concern.”

“But-”

Sam laid an understand hand on his arm. “It's not that anyone condones it, Steve. It's just that those people got good at getting away with it. They were monsters, and monsters have a habit of hiding under people's noses.”

That might be true, but it made Steve uneasy nonetheless. “How long has she been with them?”

Shrugging, Natasha said callously, “Long enough for them to make movies.”

“Not helpful.”

“You're right. So let's go get some help,” she said with a mischievous grin. “I bet there are one or two cops who'd like an autograph from the ultimate patriot.”

“You are the worst friend ever.”

She put her feet up on the dash and relaxed. “Oh, I bet you say that to all the girls.”


	11. Breaker

Cuddling, Stevie decided, was the best thing ever. Most especially with a book of art with tiny print and huge pictures to trace with her fingers. Sometimes Daddy would linger over a piece and forget to read the big words, but that was okay. He was warm and stroked her hair slowly. For some reason, he liked it a lot, and he would brush it for almost twenty minutes. She let him, except before breakfast. Food took first place then.

It had been about three days since she had woken up in a strange bed, in a strange house. The house was not scary at all. It even smelled nice, like cookies. Everything was simply unknown to her. Only the metal arm over her chest was familiar. Not very warm, but certainly known.

She had learned a lot about her daddy in the last several days. He seemed to be a little anxious, keeping the curtains closed and checking the locks every time he went outside. As far as she could guess, he did not want anyone to find them, which was fine by Stevie. Mostly he did okay with her questions, even though there were plenty he would not answer. When he was pushed, he did yell. But he never hit, and even though he had to help her to the potty and in the bath, it never made her feel dirty inside. Sometimes she would catch him just staring at her, but when he noticed that she had found him out, he would gently stroke her cheek and then look away.

So far he had not said very much in the way of information. Not that he talked often, either. Instead, he tended to give a mild command or make bland statements. More frequently, he would simply physically take charge of the situation. Stevie suspected he still thought of her as kind of a baby. It was partly the way he handled her, and almost all the fact that he had come up with baby food to feed her, three times now.

Currently, she was snuggled back against his chest as he ran his fingers over a Monet and failed to read the sidebar. Stevie did not mind that. It was much better than dwelling on people trying to hurt her- people who had shot her, she now understood- or how he had found her, or when this was all going to come to an end. Missing kids were always found.

He brought his good hand up and put it to her forehead. “Medicine.”

She made a face. “Okay.”

He lifted her with his other arm, the one covered in metal. That was the one thing she had not asked about yet. Well, that and her other dad. Mom said she had two, which had made quite a lot of elementary school confusing, and caused many misunderstandings with teachers. It was “not done” for an orphan to draw herself with two daddies and a mom.

Using the kettle, he poured hot water into a cup. Daddy knew about her hot chocolate addiction, right down to the two soft peppermints melted in. Sweet as it was, the pills were still gross to deal with. They were big, and because they were so large, he cut them in half, which meant she was tasting the insides. It was worse than chewing aspirin.

After she decided her superhero name would have to be Rubberface, Stevie curled in against her daddy. Aside from that metal arm thing, he was quite warm. Definitely not soft, however. He never seemed to relax completely, which meant his rock-hard abs were exactly that: like stone. Despite the discomfort and downright silliness of attempting to make herself comfortable on such an unyielding surface, Stevie kept on trying. She was fully aware that sooner or later he would catch on to the fact that she was not a baby.

Then it would be scoldings and arguments and disapproval about her failing to act her age. He would say, “You're too old to behave like this,” and “Big girls don't do that.” Why did she have to grow up because everyone else said so? If childhood was so great that every adult had to tell her what it was like, why did she not get one?

It would be so easy to believe that because her daddy had not yet said those things, he might never say them. He liked when she snuggled against him, if the way he pulled her in closer meant something at all. As far as she had been able to make out through the petting and the bed-sharing, he wanted to be with her all the time. She had a feeling if she asked him to let her go to the bathroom on her own, he would be hurt. But that time would have to end.

“Steffy,” he said gently, “What is it?”

It was all the fault of the stupid medicine. She could no longer seem to censor her speech, or hold on to her emotions as tightly. When she was wiggling, she was also trying hard to conceal the fact that she had been crying. Again. This was getting ridiculous. But of course, she blurted out,

“Don't go, Daddy. I'll be good, I swear.”

Sliding her until she had her bottom firmly rested on the counter, he took her head in her hands and said tenderly, “Never again, Steffy.”

She could not meet his eyes. Maybe he believed it, but she had learned better over the years. Mom, Livvy, even that stray cat who used to come around; all had one thing in common: they were gone now. Daddy would be the first. Wanting that kind of miracle to happen did not mean that it would. She knew her chances.

Lifting her up and bringing her in close to his chest, he told her softly, “I know you're afraid. I am too. But we can never get anywhere if we never try.”

“Mommy said that,” she mumbled into his shoulder. She felt his hair brush her face as he nodded.

“She had to remind me.”

“Daddy,” she said, remembering that he still did not know, “Mommy is-”

“I know.” The way he spoke it was so ragged that her eyes began to smart. So he missed Mommy too.

“I'm sorry, Daddy.”

“No, no, no.” Pulling her in even more tightly, he insisted lovingly, “No, my precious baby girl. No, you have nothing to be sorry for. What happened was not your fault. I made them pay for what they did, I promise you. But you, my pretty chickadee, did nothing wrong.”

She wondered what he meant by making them pay. Of course, she had been five at the time, and had never been able or allowed to follow up on that story. Stevie doubted she would be permitted even now. Especially with the sort of information she suspected would be available. Probably Daddy would not want to expose her to how precisely he had made people pay.

“Come to bed, chickadee,” Daddy said gently. “You're too tired.”

And that was that. Every now and then, he seemed almost normal, except he had a pretty heavy accent and called her funny nicknames. What even was a chickadee?

He curled up with her in the bed once he had her tucked in tight. Like Stevie, Daddy was fascinated by her Captain America blanket. Most of the time, his idle stroking of the shield would put her to sleep. Instead, she took his arm into hers, like a metallic teddy bear. He smiled, just a tiny bit.

“Go to sleep, Steffy. I'll be here.”

“Can I have a song?” she asked quietly. Another side effect of the pills: she made more stupid requests.

After a kiss on her forehead, he obliged with that same familiar lullaby. “Angels watching ever round thee, all through the night. In thy slumbers close surround thee, all through the night. They will of all fears disarm thee, no forebodings should alarm thee, they will let no peril harm thee, all through the night.”

Snuggled down into the bed, his arm securely wrapped in her own, Stevie gave in to his suggestion that she fall asleep. For now, she was warm and secure. Maybe that would change, but just for a little while, she could live in this dream world where no one was hitting her, and someone cuddled in close just for her comfort. Besides, this house had no basement.


	12. Overcast

“This is the place,” Natasha said, looking out at the sprawling but decrepit brick warehouse.

“You could hide a bomber in there,” Sam noted.

Steve killed the ignition. Given that their informant sounded like a candidate for the madhouse, he honestly doubted they would find anything. Then again, he knew better than to trust a classic stool pigeon, the type who knew no matter their relation to the crime, that who the police wanted to be responsible was the one what done it. What could Jillian have possibly seen in that slimeball, Steve doubted he could understand.

Sporting a beard only by grace of the fact that weed was not a correct name for what grew on people's chins, he had been in the process of setting himself up to be rolled by the police. His shouting was wild, and his theories were even stranger, but Steve made out a buzzword faster than Sam, if not Natasha: HYDRA. According to him, once Steve had physically hustled him far enough away that the officers no longer were contemplated a real gag, Stephanie had been kidnapped by HYDRA to be experimented on, and all the answers could be found in a disused warehouse down west of Grand Avenue.

Steve would have thought that wild conspiracies had died out with the invention of the internet. But as with the moon landing, apparently, anything was up for speculation. Tony, being an ass with moments of redemptive quality, promised to take Steve up to see the flag. Steve had serious doubts, about that as well as this set-up.

Unlike him, however, both Natasha and Sam looked completely nonchalant. Knowing that they both would be scanning for exits and eyes watching too closely, Steve tried to concentrate on the building itself. If there was anyone inside, they had not maintained the exterior very well. Aside from a couple of boarded up windows, the place looked unprotected. He pointed to the main door, barred with metal.

“Not very inviting.”

“Or well kept,” Sam agreed, but Natasha informed them,

“There's always a side door for deliveries you don't want the world to know about. Come on.”

“What about security?”

She rolled her eyes. “Do you see anyone watching? That's because no one is. Not even a homeless guy.”

Looking both ways, Sam noted, “That's not surprising, since there are a lot of good underpasses just a little way up the street, and the doorways here don't look deep enough to be decent shelter.”

Steve raised a brow, he knew he did. The vet shrugged. But it was Natasha who solved the puzzle, asking, “You expect to find any vets here?”

“This state has a decent system, I've heard. Don't know it first hand, of course, and people always fall through the cracks, sometimes by design. Feel like they can't ever be normal, you know? But it seems like most of them are older, too.”

“Do something long enough and it gets to be the new normal,” Steve agreed.

“There's other stuff going on,” Sam pointed out as they headed around to the back. “Until maybe ten years ago, most veterans who got lost in the system stayed that way. We had been out of war for a while, and we thought that the old rigging would suit the new sails, if you catch my drift. Not that, strictly speaking, it had fit the old sails any better. But we're learning how to do better, and that's the main thing. It's not so taboo for everyone to talk about what it was like to be in a war, or to say that Hollywood has no business romanticizing the horror of it.”

“Good luck changing that,” Natasha quipped, and Steve knew she was sizing up the windows before she continued, “Give me a boost.”

“There is a door,” he pointed out hopelessly.

“A locked door. Now, about that boost?”

As he lifted her up so that she could reach the second story window, Steve wondered if he would ever lift someone without feeling like he was about to launch them into the sky. Then again, the last time he had tussled with Bucky, his friend had felt phenomenally heavy. That metal arm accounted for most of it, he hoped. He had no idea what else HYDRA had done to Bucky, but the possibilities were endless, and, according to the less savory areas of the internet, much more horrifying than he himself could ever dream.

Strangely, Steve did suspect that it was equally worse than what Schmidt might have envisioned, either. Underneath his madness, there had been a hint of humanity, a glimpse of a mind working toward a dream not entirely without merit. His methodology needed serious revision, and obviously his followers had taken this to new extremes, but somehow Steve just knew Schmidt never meant for things to reach the depths Zola had dragged the group to.

Natasha was opening the door within minutes, and she said with total seriousness, “You have to see this.”

“This,” was not a warehouse, nor a factory, as the building might have implied. Once it had been a modern sort of office space, but was hastily re-purposed at some point along the way so that while some bones of the cubicles remained, aside from two rooms in the back, everything was completely visible. In the front, slightly to the right of the main entrance, a glass encased room had been erected. There were few spaces from which it could not be viewed.

As Steve walked closer, he understood Nat's sudden departure from levity. The room was sealed, from the outside. Something, or someone, had put a dramatic radius of cracks in one wall. And, very near that same spot, there were. . .

“Baby toys,” Sam said aloud. “What the hell were they up to in here? Was this Hulk preschool, or something?”

It was not merely the toys that gave evidence to presence of at least one tiny child. There was a bassinet tipped over. Blankets, tiny books that had bright pictures in simple shapes, and even a dusty bottle, added to the overwhelming picture of some kind of nursery. That only begged the question: why did HYDRA need a nursery, particularly one reinforced against what looked like a jailbreak attempt, or tantrum way beyond the norm for a small toddler.

He thumped an undamaged wall, not gently. The glass did no more than make a slight ting. Beside him, Natasha pointed to the metal edge of the cage where it met the glass.

“It's treated. Glass between two sheets of thin plastic. It adds protection to it, and prevents all those hazardous shards. Still, I would expect even you to have trouble doing that kind of damage. Someone was angry.”

“Bucky?' theorized Sam. “I know, it doesn't make sense with the baby stuff, but that could be a blind, right?”

“A weird blind, with a lot of effort for no real reward,” Natasha sniffed.

“Let's move to those rooms in the back,” Steve ordered. “Maybe we'll get some information there.”

“No papers,” Sam noted as they walked through the remains of cubicle walls.

“Someone cleaned up,” Natasha agreed. “Or everything was already on a computer. If the timing is the same as when Jillian died, every big organization had access to USB drives.”

“Still leaves them open to cyber theft,” Sam argued.

They walked into the first room, toward the southwest like the glass nursery. Someone had gone through here like a hurricane. Again, there was no paper, but there had been once, judging by the filing cabinets tossed around. Steve's boots crunched on broken glass, but although most of the equipment was doubtless ruined, he could guess some form of chemistry had been done in this room.

Natasha frowned. “Too bad Stark isn't here. He could say what these machines were for. I can only identify the fridge and the centrifuge.”

“Centrifuge?” asked Sam.

Natasha pointed to the battered remnants of a cylindrical machine. “Over there. Looks like the slots were for test tubes, but I couldn't say if it was for blood or something else.”

Well out of his depth, Steve resolved to look that up later. What a centrifuge did with blood, he had no real clue. With no further evidence leaping out at him, he moved on to the last room. Natasha followed him. When he found the door was locked, she stopped him from smashing it in.

“Sometimes all you need is a soft touch. And a credit card.”

“And who did you lift that from?”

Natasha winked. “No one who needed it. Door's open, gentlemen.”

This room was untouched, with more science or medical equipment, but in smaller sizes. There was a chair with rotting restraints, and a counter that covered an entire wall beneath cabinets. Steve looked around and saw what was possibly a computer in one corner. It had a green light on, to his bemusement.

Equally confusing, Natasha was digging through the trashcan. She rifled through old paper cups and coffee filters, and then her eyebrows came up. Lifting up a small square foil, she said,

“Someone was busy in here.”

“That's just wrong,” Sam told her.

“Or intriguing. The rest of this place was all business, with nowhere to hide. Yet whoever was back here got frisky. But only once, it seems. You know what that means?”

“That the janitor came every night?”

“That this probably was someone's office. And not a too high-ranking person, either.”

Turning from a fruitless search for that funny circle with line in it that was on every on button now, Steve asked sharply, “What makes you say that?”

“Because you can look into this room from that one on the second floor.”

He had made a novice mistake. He had not looked up. Maybe this time Natasha had caught up the slack, but he was not going to let the sting go out of that stupidity for a long time. Enemy territory was three dimensional, not just what he saw when he looked left and right.

“That door is off its hinges,” Sam pointed out. “Why isn't this one?”

“And what does this have to do with Bucky?”

There was a soft beep from the direction of the computer. Steve threw up his shield (big and conspicuous, certainly, but also one hundred percent effective against bullets). However, all that happened was a screen on the wall opposite the counter descended slowly. Natasha looked at him.

“You must have said the password.”

Then an obviously automated voice said, “Voice identification authenticated. Steven Rogers present. Running program ISIS.”

“I thought ISIS was the space station.”

“Wait, you know about the space station?” Sam started to ask, but he was overruled by a different female voice speaking quietly.

“-tain Rogers, welcome. As welcome, I mean, as you can be in a HYDRA establishment. If you've made it here, I know there are no further traps, so you can relax slightly. This is- was- my office, and I kept them out. To be honest, he kept them out.”

It was Jillian Schmidt, the projector revealed. Without the staging of the portrait, she still managed to look almost equally polished. She was talking directly to the camera, speaking quietly but also quickly. So far as he could discern, her intent was to impart as much information as possible without being overt to anyone watching. Confirming this, she carried on with her exposition.

“By now, I hope you know who I am, but in case you do not, I will go quickly over my history. My name is Jillian Schmidt- except that I am also Jillian Barnes, and I was born Johanna Schmidt. My mother, Sinthea Schmidt, was Johann Schmidt's daughter. She was born to a washerwoman, shortly after he came to the archaic decision that his legacy could only go to a male heir. According to rumor, he nearly killed her at birth.

“My mother was raised by someone else whose name you know: Baron Zemo. She was probably still a child when he forced her into wedlock and raped her. I don't know any more than that, because she didn't tell Rebecca Barnes anything. She simply appeared one night, on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall, heavily pregnant and begging Rebecca to take her child. She died not long after giving birth to me.

“You know Rebecca. She was your best friend's little sister. After the war, she became a nurse and a good one. She traveled a bit, given a helping hand by one of your old allies: Peggy Carter. After adopting me, Rebecca came home and found a man to be my father. Thankfully she never lied to me about where I was from, and I learned a great deal about how the world worked without setting foot in it.

“This brings me to the man I know you are searching for. James Buchanan Barnes is alive. And if you have come here, it can only be because he has found Stephanie. I don't know how long after I am dead it is for you, nor how much time you have before HYDRA comes to reclaim her, so I will continue to skim over much of the detail. Once this has finished playing, the USB will be accessible to you in the third drawer on the left, with your right thumbprint only. You'll excuse me, but it was all that was on file for you.”

Steve tried to exchange glances with the others, but Natasha was watching closely, resembling her partner, and Sam actually had his mouth slightly open. It was a near over-whelming amount to digest, and she was not slowing down at all.

“I am sorry to be so fast, but as your time is limited, so too is mine. HYDRA is near to discovering my real intentions. I had hoped speaking to Director Fury, a man of infinite sense, would work, but it seems I placed too much faith in his legend.

“To be brief, Stephanie is my daughter. But she is also James's child. And yours.”

There was a clang as his shield hit the floor. The hell-

“I know you will be well out of your depth once SHIELD officially finds you, so pardon my somewhat babyish explanation: You have in you the blueprint of what makes you who you are. With the right skill, a scientist can pluck that blueprint out and use it to build another person a great deal like you, and yet, not you. There are numerous reasons why this person cannot be you, but the important part is that this process is far too fiendish to trust. Therefore, rather than borrow that blueprint to create another person like you, HYDRA chose to take your blueprint, and the blueprints of those who had been granted abilities like yours, merge them, and see if that much more simple plan would work as well, if not better.

“Of course, this is where I come into their plan. I am not Johann Schmidt, but I am his descendant. Somewhere within me run parts of what made him superhuman. I know this because I was born in 1959. I am quite aware that I do not look it. However my pieces of the blueprint are so small, HYDRA almost chose not to use them. They would be difficult, if not impossible, to isolate. You, however, and James, had left your blueprints where anyone might discover them.

“Your blood, six vials of it, was distributed to the government and one Howard Stark. HYDRA arranged an accident for Stark, and through deception managed to acquire the last vial of your blood. But that was not the only sample the military requested of you.”

He knew he was turning red. If Bucky had been there, that particular request would have gone unanswered, but that was prior to Steve realizing he did not need to find worth by playing a part. Instead he could be the person who inspired the role.

“Of course HYDRA got their hands on that the moment Arnim Zola weaseled his way into SHIELD. Zola never gave up his hope to create the equal of Erskine's work. The other samples I collected from James myself. The moment I knew I could not release James, I worked my way into undermining HYDRA's plans. I leveraged my ancestry into power enough to defy Whitehall repeatedly. But that power wanes as the older generation succumbs to time.

“They chose me to bear Stephanie, and used my egg as the incubator for your blueprint and James's. She is, perhaps, less than two percent mine in that way, but I also won the right to raise her. But as much as she may be my heart's daughter, she is your blood daughter. Certainly, she behaves a bit like you: stubborn, a little reckless, and with a heart bigger than the world itself. And there are pieces of James in her also: his devilish grin, mischief and steadiness. He hardly ever saw her, of course. But she has a hold on James I never expected.

“You have seen the glass room outside. That crack is from a hideous attempt to have him injure her on command. You see the shell, but you do not see the bodies. I never encouraged his attachment, but I do not doubt it has fuel enough to burn for centuries. This is how you came to be here of course. I have seeded certain contacts to lead you in this direction should he break his conditioning. He may wander briefly, but it will not take him long to come for her.

“The USB contains addresses, potential places he would go for safety. It also contains what notes I have made of Stephanie's progress. She has your strength and stamina, but that I have kept secret from her. Please, I know you never asked for her, I know this is something you would not have sought on your own, but do not blame Stephanie for my failures. It was my arrogance, my naivete, that created this situation for you, not Stephanie herself. And be gentle with James. He is far more fragile than I fear even you may understand.

“Godspeed, Captain Rogers. And, hopefully, the HYDRA nests I also included will reap you bountiful harvests.”

“That's a plus,” Natasha said into the yawning silence caused by the cutting off of the recording.

“You-”

Sam cut in quickly, “Okay, so this stuff is keyed to your fingerprints, she said. What do you want to bet that HYDRA knows that?”

“Get it and get out,” Natasha agreed. “That must be why she was talking so fast. Get that USB drive, Steve. Sam and I will check the exits.”

He could hardly argue. As his friends split up, he went to the drawer she had indicated. He fumbled around until he heard a click. Time spent with Natasha reminded him to draw his hand back quickly, but nothing happened. Sliding it slowly out, he saw the small black stick and a piece of yellow paper. It read, in very small letters, “I'm sorry.”

As if that made any damn difference. There could be no reason good enough to validate Frankenstein-ing together his. . . whatever with Bucky's whatever and making a baby out of that. As he flicked it away, he noticed that the white lining of the drawer had a strange shadow on it. When he focused, he realized it was another piece of paper.

Except it was not. Flipping it over, he was shocked to see a photograph, in full color of Bucky. He was smiling. And there in his arms, probably giggling, was baby Stephanie. In fact, she was holding on to his metal arm, much to Steve's astonishment. The photo was. . . candid, a moment in time, almost as if he had been inside of that room, watching Bucky tickle the little girl's belly as they sat on the rug. The woman had been good with the camera.

So that guy had been one of her “seeds?” Made sense. No one made a more obvious, obnoxious plant that hardly any but the most desperate would consider a source, and he would be easily self-motivating, creep that he was. If she was at all sincere, she probably could stomach him, at least for a while.

But what about Stephanie? Jesus, could any of this be true? Of all the things he had run across in this new century, this took the cake. It took a man and a woman to make a baby, not two men and a woman's. . . egg. Shaking himself out of contemplation, Steve went to join his companions. As much as he hated to, he knew who he was going to have to call in next. There was going to be more to this information than he was able to process, and he suspected neither Sam nor Natasha would be very much better off.

What in God’s name was going to happen next?


	13. Halo 'Round the Sun

He watched her pouring over the art book again. There were other books, but they were, when he could remember the fact, too young to hold her attention. But then, even when she had been so small that the book outweighed her, she had preferred to stare at the paintings and copies, running her tiny fingers over the lines and shadows. Like her father, she breathed that inside of herself and forgot all other considerations.

She looked up at him from a Rembrandt, eyebrows coming up. Smarter than her dad, though, to not be too absorbed. She kept catching him out. Did that make her like him, the way he had always caught. . . caught. . . he could not remember.

Before he could get frustrated with his ineptitude, she said, “Can you read to me, Daddy?”

Daddy. Such a beautiful word to him now. It had been colored by her big blue eyes and pouting lips. Where once it had been a word he had stopped using because it was too childish and silly, it became something he ached to hear from her. Inside, he felt a rush of warmth and. . . affection? Yes, love for his little girl- their precious baby. No matter what else was taken, she was still there.

Sliding the book into his left hand, he brought her in close with the other. She never protested being snuggled, unlike. . . unlike someone else. Turning her little head in she put her cheek to his chest and he remembered for a moment another little girl, with dark hair and big blue eyes, face flush with a fever they did not have the money to treat. He heard a boy whispering, “Don't tell Mama, Becca, she won't like it. But you're going to get better and I won't get sick.”

Without meaning to, Steffy knocked him out of that memory when she mumbled, “I just don't know how to say this word. It's okay if you don't want to.”

Damn! He had hurt her again. How he kept stumbling over her feelings, he could not understand, but she was constantly shrinking back, apologizing for things that were not her fault, or pretending it was not a problem for him to ignore or forget about her.

Refusing to let her pull away again, he scanned the page. All this damn tiny print! Who could possibly read this all day long without getting a headache? But she had asked him to, and so he would.

He read to her until he felt her head drooping. Carefully- she was so delicate- he eased her into his lap until her cheek was pressed over his heart, and her legs were tangled between his. It was amazing how comfortable she could be in the least comfortable of positions. As he settled back at an angle, she squirmed a little, and then settled in with her arms barely reaching around his chest. She was so small! And yet, still bigger than he expected her to be, every time.

Someone else had been like that, but he could not call their name, or even their face to mind. Only the feel of the body wrapped around his, thin limbs stretching to their utmost. He could recall the heat from their body, too, sometimes dangerously hot, other times enticingly so. It must have been the one who called him Bucky, the one with that crushing look of disappointment and stubborn love.

Those eyes, though. . . he knew them. He knew the way they looked just before a kiss, and filled with rage, or tears. And. . . yes, yes he did know them rolling back and closing tight as he orgasmed deep inside of. . .

He looked down at the little burden in his arms. With great care he got to his feet and carried her back to the little bedroom. She loved it, and the blanket that had been given to her. As soon as he had her beneath it, she curled up almost around it, holding as much in her tiny hands as she could. Lingering there for a long while, he admired her golden hair, so much like her father's. Then, leaning over her, he placed a light kiss on her forehead- no, not too hot yet- and left her in peace.

A patrol of the house did not calm him. So, after another check in with his baby, he went into the bathroom and locked the door. She would be fine for an hour, and he needed to make this stop before she woke up.

Inside the shower, under the spray that was probably no more than warm, he tried to concentrate on bathing like another task, but the images came back most strongly at times like this. They could be so strong, he could almost feel the soft brush of hands over is skin, hear the rough breathing of the one who was stroking him so ardently, even see those damn blue eyes looking up at him from around his dick.

Giving in like he always did, like he always had, he took his problem in hand. Slowly, savoring the thoughts flooding in, he let himself surrender. They were fragments only, but no less arousing for that. Sometimes his partner was thin and small, but so big inside of him. Then there was the silence, holding in breaths to prevent discovery, knowing that at any moment they could be found out, and becoming only more flushed for it. Lips were everywhere, tongues probing places that were considered filthy, but oh, so greedy in the pursuit of pleasure.

As his own hand was working, still he felt others. They ran over his chest, slid along his thighs. A hot, wet tongue was in his mouth, but also wrapped around his cock. He heard so many different groans, but all from the same throat he felt under his teeth and hands. And those muffled cries of orgasm that he recalled so vividly had him aching to release himself.

But his own end did not come until he remembered easing inside of the tightest space known to him and heard the answering far too loud groan, “Fuck, that feels so good, Bucky. I want you to do that all the time now. Go on, fuck me. Take me like you've always wanted to.”

Awareness of the present trickled back, rudely reminding him that here, in this when, he was alone. The wetness he felt was not from a lover, but the water gushing over his hot skin. Feeling heavy and dull, he ran the soap over his body once more. There was no one else here.

Towel around his waist, he stepped into the hall. Fresh clothes were in order, so that he did not smell. She would not tell him, but her little snub nose would crinkle, making her faint freckles look like unusual pockmarks.

He only had his pants on before she was calling him. Shirt dangling from his metal hand- no matter what people thought, it was clumsy in everyday use- he ran down the hall to her bedroom. The blood and fire vanished, but there was. . . a faint scent, and she was crying, but fighting it. She did not want him to see how upset she was.

“What, chickadee, what?” he asked, taking her shoulders so carefully in his hands. “Tell me, so I can make it better.”

“I. . .” She screwed up her face, and bit back a sob. “I. . .”

“Easy, Steffy, easy baby girl,” he urged, finding a way to make his hands stop shaking so that he could stroke her face tenderly.

“I wet the bed,” she whispered, deeply shamed. Unable to stop himself, he pulled her in, a little sharply. Thank God. Except there was no God. He knew that better than anyone.

“I'm sorry Daddy, I didn't mean to do it.”

“No, no. I can clean it. It's fine, chickadee. I promise, it's going to be a-okay.” He did not know if it was her, or those memories, but he could feel the dialect coming back to him.

“You're not mad?” she said so low that he nearly missed it. Surely no one else could tear him up inside the way she did. He hated the people who had made her fear him, and somehow their deaths were not enough to help her let go.

“I am never, ever, ever mad at you,” he said into her lovely face, forehead pressed lightly to hers. “Pinky swear.”

As he stripped her down and carried her to the bath, he had another recollection, but almost in reverse. He was the one being carried, by someone brisk and in control, while another person, small, followed behind. He could recall wanting to reassure them, but as strong as it had been, the memory faded as soon as he laid Steffy in the tub. Before turning on the water for her, he checked the bandage. In a few more days, the stitches had to come out. For now, though, he picked up another plastic bag and wound it around her waist. Once that was taped down, he started the water.

She still loved a warm bath, even if she was holding tight to his metal arm. He watched her play with the bubbles and felt the twitch of his lips that meant he was smiling. How long had it been? But she brought that out in him, like no one ever could.

It did confuse him that she was so attached to his arm. Since she was tiny, she had always had a preference for it, but he did not know why. Even in the dead of winter, when he came in from the outdoors with it so cold that his whole shoulder ached, that was which one she chose to snuggle. Her mother had been more equal opportunity, but neither had ever shied from it.

Now she had only his fingertips as she concentrated on her bubble mountain range, and he knew they would be in here for some time. But first he had to take care of her bed and bedding. So he gently disentangled himself and promised to be back as soon as possible. He might be too fast and too rough in his haste to be done and get back to her, but she was worth it.

Once he was back, she was content again, looking up at him with a bright smile. When he helped her dunk her head, she did not even hold on to him, believing that nothing would happen while he was the one in control. He could drown in that much trust, that love. He had a feeling that he had done so once before, with someone else, a long time ago.


	14. Black Ice

“Have you memorized her face yet?” Natasha said right in his ear.

He fumbled the picture, but she caught it by the corner before it hit the ground. Glowering at her, he snatched it back. She raised one perfectly shaped brow, and then slid onto the park bench next to him.

“You think she's yours.”

“You don't?”

Natasha shrugged. “We haven't got much to go on, yet. It's a little early to be sure of anything we've heard. But I know you. You're already thinking of her as yours. I bet you already feel guilty about not knowing about her.”

“Well-”

“Steve, remember when you asked me to be your friend? This is your friend talking: don't get too close to that girl. There's no way of knowing from this distance if she is yours, or if HYDRA has already gotten to her. She could just be a clever trap.”

“No. That's not possible. She's a kid, Nat.”

Shrugging again, she told him, “So was I.”

As she got up from the bench to talk with Sam, Steve mentally kicked himself. Bucky had called him Steve “Foot in Mouth” Rogers with good reason. Moments of brilliancy were few and far between, and he might have unintentionally hurt Natasha's feelings by reminding her of a childhood that hinted at being worse than what they suspected Stephanie's had been.

Still. . . he looked down at the photo. They both looked happy. Knowing how things were now, how was he supposed to avoid feeling guilty? His best friend and his, apparently, daughter had been out there, suffering all this time. Sure he had saved the world from aliens, but that had only taken days. The rest of the time he could have been hunting down the pair.

Bucky, though, he would be an amazing father. Partly because Steve had watched him love his kid sister like, well, like someone who loved someone else very much. Anything Rebecca wanted, especially when she was still too little to throw a decent punch, Bucky found a way to get for her. Steve had watched his friend spend hours doing hard labor for pennies just to save up to get Rebecca a doll of her own. And when the dress on it had worn out, Bucky had learned to sew. So had Steve, because there were only so many fingers to stab before your hands hurt too much to hold the needle, let alone thread it. Together, trading off between aching and bleeding hands, they had cobbled three more outfits. Somehow they had figured out sleeves, and even adding lace to the hem. Steve knew they'd fallen apart the first time they had gone through a washing, because Bucky's mother had returned them suspiciously neater than they had been, as well as cleaner.

Still, that did not change the fact that Bucky had been willing to un-man himself, as well as bleed for his sister. Hell, there had been that time Rebecca had come down with the measles, and then Bucky caught it sneaking into her bed at night to help her stop crying. Steve had just about made himself sick with fear when his best friend had fainted away in the middle of a great game of stickball.

It made Buck sound like a soft touch, and maybe he was for his sister- and Steve too, a bit- but nobody punched harder, threw a ball with more menace, and Bucky definitely held the street record for “accidental” over-swings that stopped themselves using the catcher's arm. During the war, he had been even harder, doing all the sniping with a kind of cold calculation that had caused more than a few arguments between them. But for all that fear in Steve's heart, Bucky had never hurt a true civilian, and he would be the first to put himself between a woman and a group of soldiers who wanted to raid her home for bread. . . and less savory things.

Inside, no matter how thick he made his shell, Bucky was still spilling over with love and tenderness. No medic ever got to Steve before Bucky, and nobody but Bucky understood that Steve still was afraid of the cold, afraid that his weakness would come back. So, Bucky would wait for everyone else to leave the tent, and pull his cot right up to Steve and hold him like he'd done when they had lived together. When they were out in the cold, no bunks to be had, Bucky did it anyway. He joked with the team that they were missing out, because the experiments had turned Steve into a human furnace. To be honest, sometimes Steve would look at Peggy and feel guilty that he was falling in love with someone who was not Bucky.

Not that Bucky was anything but encouraging. Some nights Carter would show up and Bucky would do his best to murder Steve through his shin, urging him to talk with her already, They fought about that, too. Bucky always ended it by hissing at him,

“Damn it Steve, the first dame to look at you for yourself and you're trying to throw yourself away on me?”

It cut deep. Part of it was pride, not wanting to be caught out being too weak to be honest, and using his friend as a shield. But there was the part of him that put his back to Bucky at night and cried as quietly as he could because no matter what Bucky thought, Steve could not stop loving him too. It was useless and hopeless, but it never went away, despite the logic he tried to throw at it. His heart was just too stupid to understand that no one could possibly love two people and get away without hurting somebody, if not everybody. It also did not seem to be willing to grasp that culturally, loving Bucky was the worst possible outcome.

He could just picture Bucky with Stephanie. She would be snuggled up in his arms, because Bucky liked- no, needed physical affirmations. Leaning over her, Bucky would show her his favorite baseball cards. She would learn about Babe Ruth, who had been a childhood idol of nearly every kid on the street, and Lou Gehrig, the rising star of the Yankees, suddenly brought back to ground by a terrible illness, and the 1932 World Series starting from game one. He would teach her, like he had taught his sister, how to throw a solid punch and every single point on a man that hurt like stink. Girls needed to know how to fight as well as the boys, if not better. It was a point on which he and Bucky had always agreed, although Steve had not appreciated being the punching bag because Rebecca had been his height exactly by the time she was seven. She had had the sharpest elbows in the known world, too.

Stephanie was beyond a doubt a lucky kid. Most likely, if she was anything like the kids he saw out and about, she would spend a lot of time glued to her cellphone, but Bucky would pay for it. He would indulge her little whims, like dolls or toy horses, because he liked to see her eyes light up. They would go places, too: the zoo, because he had always loved the animals; the park, to teach her to catch properly with a glove in either hand; to a flick; anywhere she wanted to go. For her, he would move heaven and earth. At this point, Steve doubted anything could stop his friend.

Steve knew why Bucky had killed the people he had in this city. All of them had threatened and hurt his little girl. In spite of Natasha's warnings, Steve felt the same way. But that was himself all over: feel that way, but let the others do the parts he could not stomach. Steve could not have shot a man from far away, a man who would never know he was coming. He had to do it one on one, face to face. No surprise, then, that Bucky had taken on the sniper's burden, or that Natasha filled it in now. They were a lot more alike than he wanted to contemplate. At least he knew he was not going to fall for Natasha, not when she more than likely already belonged to someone else, for whom Steve had a lot of respect.

Nat was right, though. They did not have enough to go on. Maybe Stephanie was Steve's and Bucky's. Maybe she was only Bucky's. Maybe she was another twisted way for HYDRA to control Bucky. To know it for certain, Steve was going to need help, very specific help. And he was definitely putting it off, because when he got right down to it, he was both disgusted by and jealous of the expert in question. And if he was not an expert today, he would be by the time Steve made it back to New York.

Natasha came back over with Sam, looking ready to talk and Steve said, knowing that he simply had to, “We need Stark.”


	15. Trough

After a long time in the house, Stevie was surprised to be wrapped in her blanket and brought out to a car. Daddy was not in a talkative mood, but he did kiss her forehead once he was buckled into the backseat. It was that little touch to let her know he was not angry, and she did her best to hold back her trembling lip. Was he taking her to Miss Torres?

He slid into the front seat, smoothly starting the engine. Then, abruptly, he paused. Awkwardly, as if only just remembering her presence, he turned to look at her in the backseat. He slid his hand back to tap her knee and said,

“It's a long drive. Get some sleep.”

Turning back, he let his hand hover over the radio. Their eyes met in the rearview mirror. Suddenly he opened his door, and then hers. He unbuckled her and took her into his arms. Though he seemed to intend to move her to the front seat, Stevie clung to him tightly. If she just held on, he could not send her back.

Gently, he stroked her hair. “I am not leaving you. You need clothes, that's all.”

Curling in against his chest, she wondered if that was simply a clever excuse. But he tangled the fingers of his right hand in her hair and kissed the top of her head very lightly. It was the kind of thing that reminded her strongly of her mother. And then he had her in the front passenger seat while she was too weak to think properly.

Kindly, he held her hand once her had the car started and they were out on the road. The quiet was not the normal brooding kind of calm Daddy tended to create, maybe because he had to be more in the present than usual. It was rare opportunity. With the heater on full blast, though, Stevie found herself dozing more than trying to think up questions. Even with her stitches out yesterday, she was still exhausted most of the time. She was not so deeply asleep that she missed Daddy's tender stroking of her hand.

As he had said, it took a while before they came to an actual full stop. Blinking against the suddenly bright overcast day, she waited for Daddy to let her out. Instead of picking her up like usual, he offered Stevie a hand. It was the most natural feeling in the world to hold his hand as they walked into a little consignment store, and that was a little weird. She had not held hands with an adult for years. So she hung on a little tighter.

They were greeted with the bright, but not completely predatory smile of the woman behind the counter. Asked about coats, she led them to a rack out of the way in the back. By no means was anything dusty or dark, but these looked relatively disregarded. In explanation, the woman said,

“Most everyone has gotten their coats for the season.” She looked at Stevie curiously, and it was obvious she was seeking some answers of her own. When Daddy ignored her, Stevie had to pipe up.

“I lost mine.” Not exactly a lie. In fact, it was definitely the truth.

“Well, that happens to everyone. Just don't make a habit of it,” the woman said brightly. Stevie had to stop herself from saying something sarcastic. It was not as though the woman was being saccharine. However, the time Stevie had spent with her normally subdued parent made her seem over-prying, and fake.

Her introspection was cut off by Daddy lifting out the most beautiful coat Stevie had ever seen. It was powdery light blue, with pockets and pretty silver buttons, and a folded down collar that was fake white fur. It even had cuffs. She could just about cry, because the price tag on it had to be steep, consignment shop or not. Besides, no way could it possibly fit.

Daddy must have caught her look. There was a ghost of a smirk as he stepped over to her and made her try it on. The silver buttons were new, she could see from the thread inside, but that was a brief moment before she was enveloped in the warm wool. And it fit, perfectly. Knowing her eyes must be huge, she looked up at him anyway. The smile was definite now, and he murmured,

“Must have been meant for you, chickadee.”

“But-” He kissed her forehead to hush her up and it worked.

Surely they were done now. On the other hand, Daddy was still looking. He found her a white hat and gloves. Then he looked from a rack of dresses to her, one eyebrow slightly raised. Well, if he wanted, she could wear a dress. Maybe two.

He did not pick pink, which made her happy. Not that Stevie hated pink or anything, it was just, well, every girl wore pink. Stevie was not everybody else. And she knew she looked stupid in pink. So the grey dress with a lacy skirt and the brown with long sleeves and a sort of Native American feel were just fine by her. Besides, Daddy seemed to like them.

They also picked up several pairs of jeans, a pair of white sneakers and shirts: a plain white blouse, black short sleeved with the words, “Trust me, I'm an Artist,” a buttery yellow with butterflies of the same color stitched on with long fluttery sleeves, and a Captain America T-Shirt in dark blue that Stevie wanted to hug to make sure it did not disappear. To her, this was more than bounty enough.

Daddy sent her to the car ahead of him with the keys. Surprised, she went, amazed to be trust to start it. Probably it was easy, right? All she ever saw anybody do was stick the key in and push it forward for a bit, and then the car was ready to go. Simple.

Thankfully, it really was that simple. And Daddy was right behind her, nodding her into her seat. The bag went into the back, and he sat in the driver's seat. Before pulling out, he petted her hair and said softly,

“Good job, chickadee.”

She nuzzled into his hand, metal or not. It simply felt that good to to be praised. Leaning over, he kissed the top of her head again, and she could smell the Irish Spring he used in the shower. For a long moment, he held her, fingers gently combing through her strands. Then, with another kiss, he murmured,

“One more stop, my little girl. Then we'll go home.”

Next up was a Target. What could they be buying here? She looked at him curiously, but he gestured her out of her door. She stood by the car while he reached into the back seat. Smiling that faint grin, he held up her new coat.

“Wouldn't want you to be cold, baby,” he told her once he had it buttoned. Unlike last time, he scooped her into his arms. He must know she was getting tired.

Unlike the consignment store, this place believed in light, everywhere. Possibly it came off the floor too, but it definitely was brighter than a sunny day inside. Stevie had to squint, but Daddy carried her toward the back, past the books and electronics to clothes. Did she really need more clothes?

Actually, she discovered, she did. Boring clothes of the sock and underwear variety, but still necessary. She had no idea how to tell what size she was, but Daddy seemed to know. He gave the underwear the same suspect look she generally did (nearly everything was pink or otherwise girly), and then told her,

“Size seven.”

She dithered a little between basically disgustingly girly or bland as f- all get out, and the weird cuts before settling on a pack. He reached around her and took a second. She could hardly picture using up that many. Now it was time for socks, and here Stevie really had a hard time. Oh, she knew her size, but there were some really cool socks, including a pair of galaxy printed tights that just looked amazing. Amused, Daddy picked up those tights and pair of very pretty floral lace ones, and then pointed to several packs of socks.

“Everyday stuff, chickadee. Things you won't be sad about getting dirty.”

There was still a little more debating, but she found something that was not totally lame and looked up for approval. His smile made her blush, and she hid her face in his side. It was embarrassing to be so shy, but she was rewarded by being picked up again. Kissing her forehead, Daddy told her softly,

“You'll never have to hide your face from me, Steffy.”

“I'm not hiding,” she mumbled, and he chuckled.

“Right.”

He kept her in his arms as he went though checkout and out into the parking lot. She did, however, get to carry the bag. Snuggling into her new coat, Stevie basked a little in the idea that she was loved enough to get brand new clothes.

After putting her back into the passenger seat, Daddy went back around to his side. She buckled up and he smiled slightly. Giving her hair a tousle, he asked softly,

“Ready to go home chickadee?” At her emphatic nod, the corner of his mouth twitched. “Library tomorrow, then.”

Stevie hesitated. There was a library? They might have some new art books. . .

“Tomorrow, Steffy,” he promised firmly.

She nodded again, and scooted back in the seat in embarrassment. Of course he wanted to go home. Boys did not like shopping, so this must have been a big chore for him. But when he tapped her forehead gently, she turned her gaze back to him immediately.

“I like seeing you have good things, chickadee. You deserve them.” Daddy said it quietly, and a little slowly. Sometimes he talked that way, as if he was having a hard time finding the words, or putting them together. Maybe for him, the words were far away and he had to catch them before he could talk.

When they got home- and it was home, now- Stevie had the pleasure of putting her things away in a dresser that belonged just to her, and hanging up the dresses in her closet that she did not have to share with anyone at all. For a moment or two she basked in the idea of a space she would never have to fight for. Certainly there were not going to be any younger kids charging in and touching or wandering off with her stuff. Maybe there would be some older people going through her things, because dads needed to do that kind of thing, right?

She turned to go see what was for dinner and found Daddy watching her, with that hint of a smile in his eyes. “You like your room, don't you, chickadee?”

“Yes!” Stevie hesitantly slid her arms around his waist and squeezed. “Thank you, Daddy.”

He picked her up again, so that they could be closer. It was like he had a hard time with distance between them. Admittedly, Stevie snuggled in at once, but he sure did hold her tight. Starting to feel a little drowsy, Stevie contemplated having a good nap on his shoulder. But there was something she needed to ask.

“Daddy,” she said softly, almost hoping he would not hear.

“What, baby?”

“Is. . . is my other dad going to come here with us?”

He pulled away and looked at her, eyes a little dark and eyebrows lowered. “You know about him?”

“Mom said I have two dads,” Stevie said, anxious to not upset him. Had she asked the wrong thing? But Mom had said-

“And you want him to come here,” Daddy interrupted her thoughts, drawing out the words in agonizing slowness.

“To be. . . with us. Like. . .” Stevie lowered her eyes. “Like a family?”

There was a whole lot of silence and she knew she had gotten it wrong somehow. Mom had told her that Daddy loved her other dad more than anything in the whole world. So, maybe. . . maybe Daddy did not want her to meet her other dad. Maybe Stevie was not the kind of girl her other dad would want to meet. After all, he had never come to see her. Of course Daddy could not introduce them. Daddy had only had Stevie because he wanted to give her other dad a perfect baby. And if her other dad did not want to see her, then Daddy would not make him, because he loved him so much.

Daddy set her on her feet and walked away. Leaving her in the room, he said nothing at all. Heart sinking, Stevie understood. There was not going to be a family. She never should have asked. Stevie was not good enough.


	16. Youg

“You need to settle down,” Clint said, tossing up a ball and pinging it with multiple paperclips before catching it again.

Having been booted from Stark's lab, Steve supposed he should agree. But Tony and Bruce were working out whether or not Stephanie was his child and how exactly was a fellow supposed to sit quietly through that? Should he get a book on parenting? What would be the best one? And what would she be like?

“Okay, Thumper. You're messing up my shots.” Clint sat up from his lazy lounge and asked, “Do you want to talk?”

For a moment Steve hesitated. What would the archer know about having kids? There was no one else around to talk to, however. Natasha was out, and Sam had gone home to prepare for some meetings at the Vet Clinic. Pepper was probably somewhere, but in less than two minutes she would discover something she needed to berate Tony about and disappear. Those two had a strange relationship, now that Steve thought about it. So, it was Clint or nobody.

“I just don't know what I should do.”

“Stop jostling the couch,” suggested the archer cheerfully.

“I meant about Stephanie.”

Clint gave him a look. “What does that mean?”

“What?”

“She's a human being, Steve, not an old shirt you really like but doesn't fit any more. You don't 'do things about' people. You do things about that couch that smells a little funky when it gets warm.”

Narrowing his eyes, Steve told the marksman, “You live a strange life.”

“Words are important,” Clint replied. “Stephanie is a person. You are getting worked up about maybe being a father and doing father stuff- but it doesn't work that way. You don't do dad stuff, you are a dad. Just like being Captain America. Doing Captain America stuff wouldn't make Sam Captain America, because you are Captain America.”

“Did any of what you just said make sense?”

With his usual deadly accuracy, Clint threw a couch pillow at Steve. “All of it made complete sense. Probably.”

“It actually did,” Bruce said as he came in. “You mean that Steve is worrying about the verb, when it is actually a noun.”

Ten minutes later, when Natasha stepped out of the elevator, they were all, truthfully, talking over the top of each other. She calmly walked through. Then she came back with a large book and slammed it down on the table.

“Sorry to interrupt Steve being dense, but it's really boring.”

“I am not being dense,” Steve retorted. “They aren't making sense.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Sure. Let's say that. But stop arguing. Save your worrying for when we potentially discover whether or not you are actually a father.”

Taking this as his cue, Bruce announced, “We'll know in another twenty minutes. Stark is, uh, getting a little precise.”

“You mean anal,” Clint disagreed.

“Well, there are some unusual variations, and we don't have her mother's DNA to test against.”

“I thought variations would mean Steve is not the father,” said Natasha, and Steve knew he was far out at sea without even a life vest when Bruce answered,

“Well, in a typical STR profiling situation, it certainly would, but given that Miss Schmidt would have had to donate the egg to put the DNA into, and was her surrogate as well, that means she may be responsible for the variations we cannot match up. Tony's definitely on top of that, believe me.”

“That accounts for this,” Natasha said, handing Steve a document. “A lawyer dropped this off in a serious huff about an hour ago. Apparently you were supposed to get this when Jillian died, but SHIELD kept dodging it.”

“Last Will and Testament-” Steve dropped it like an oven fresh potato. “Why would I get a copy of this?”

Clint picked it up and scanned it briefly, then announced, “Because, Steven Grant Rogers, born 1918, you are the father.”

“First of all, how dare you?” Tony demanded. “You stole my thunder, Robin of Loxley.”

“Actually, the thunder was stolen almost five years ago, and since you didn't pick up the hammer, it still technically belongs to Thor,” pointed out the archer with a grin.

“Wait, does this mean you agree that Stephanie is Steve's child?” Natasha cut in, breaking off the sass-festival.

“Well, I would have said I couldn't be sure, but Maria found the rest of Jillian Schmidt's file, and it contained her DNA profile. Matching everything up then was a cinch.”

Steve felt a little breathless. “Stephanie is. . ?”

“The first child born to two male parents, with a little DNA from her surrogate as well. And don't you dare say that is impossible, because there were only two mismatches for both you and your amnesiac assassin, which are matched by the surrogate. She's definitely yours.”

Clint had gone back to the Will, and now asked, “Did you know her full name is Stephanie Joseph Barnes-Rogers?”

“Isn't that-”

Cutting off Stark before he could show off further, Steve said tersely, “My dad's name, yes.”

“I can already hear the taunting,” Stark declared. “What kind of jerk gives a little girl a masculine middle name?”

“My best friend.”

There was a semi-respectful silence after this, and Steve tried to use it to think. If this document really named him as Stephanie's father, did that mean they had intended for him to take custody? It would be smarter than trying to find Bucky. But Steve knew nothing about Stephanie, and even less about little girls. Surely knowing Bucky's little sister did not actually equate any kind of experience.

“Aw,” Clint said. “You never said she was so cute.”

“She pulled a face in every class picture,” Natasha told him. “It's obnoxious, not cute.”

Flipping the photo around for her to see, the archer pointed out, “She's not making a face in this picture.”

The others leaned in, and Stark said, “Good grief, she looks just like you, Capsicle.”

She certainly was cute, finally, holding her mother's hand and smiling at the camera. Dressed for the fourth of July, judging by the tiny flag in her hand, she was cheerfully posed in front of manicured park space, fully in the summer sun. Jillian had eyes only for her, and Steve was grateful for that. At least somebody had cared about the little tyke, before everything had gone to hell.

But, despite what Stark had insisted, Steve did not see himself in the sweet face. No, even in the hang of her dark blonde hair and the beautiful blue of her eyes, he saw Bucky. She even had his same wide-eyed look of wonder. That adorable smile was all hers, though.

“She's got your chin,” Natasha agreed.

“Yeah, and his ears.”

“Hopefully not his nose, though,” Stark quipped and Steve glowered.

“Would you stop piecing her out like a quilt? This still doesn't tell us where to find Stephanie.”

While the others shrugged or looked somewhat embarrassed, Pepper stepped out of the elevator. The blonde looked extremely annoyed. Slipping her cellphone back into her pocket, she told Stark,

“You really should not have advertised this is where the Avengers are. An army of crazed robots was really upsetting, but at least they go away faster than all the fans calling in claiming to need to speak to one or the other of you. I've had to set up a call center for that. Do you know how irritating your fans are?”

“Well, we could set up a popularity meter,” Stark suggested. “Who's the victim of the week?”

Sighing, Pepper asked, “You cannot take anything seriously, can you?”

“Uh, I am the largest employer in the continental United States now, and you just told me I have more employees. Do you realize how well I can rub this in AIM's stupid faces? But really, who was most requested this week?”

With a smug look, Pepper informed the billionaire, “Not you. By the numbers, Thor is a definite winner. Natasha was coming in pretty close. But the weirdest was Steve. Someone, and Caroline is pretty sure it's the same guy, keeps calling and leaving an address for him. It's been. . . eleven times now.”

“Since when?” Steve demanded, suddenly very interested.

Flustered, Pepper said, “Well, um, it was. . . Right before you got back from Portland. Same day, a couple hours before you landed.”

“And the address?”

“Steve, I already looked it up. It's in the middle of almost nowhere. The city itself is even classified as a ghost town.”

“Sounds like a great place to go unnoticed,” Natasha murmured, and Clint agreed.

“If nobody lives there, who's going to see?”

“Looks like we need to get back on a plane,” Stark said with great personal satisfaction. “I'll go see what the company jet is doing.”

Who was “we,” wondered Steve darkly. He had an idea, and he did not like it. This was not about Tony “the showboat” Stark swooping in to use his magical money access to make everything better. Furthermore, Bucky sure as hell did not know Stark, nor Bruce or Clint. He might recognize Natasha and Sam, but only as enemies. This was obviously a solo mission, so why was everyone else butting in?

However, they had all scattered to prepare, or possibly hassle each other. That left Steve no one to argue with, most conveniently for them. Worse, now he had to face facts: he was a father to a nine year old girl who had been kidnapped by his best friend, who happened to be a little brainwashed. What a great start!

And what, really, did he even know about Stephanie? She had very good grades, even skipped a year ahead, but there were citations for fighting on her record. Maybe she had reason to be angry, after everything she had been through. But Steve was only guessing. He did not know her favorite color, or what she liked to have for breakfast. Did she play any sports, or was she more of a bookworm? Was she a fashion follower, or did she blaze her own trail? Heck, he hardly thought he would recognize her if he saw her on the street.

“Yo, Steve! What is up with this text from Stark? I mean, first of all, that is a lot of emoticons, and secondly, I think it says we're going to space. Because, whales?”

Looking at the mass of tiny pictures, Steve told Sam, “We're chasing a lead on Bucky, back in Oregon. But I don't know why the rocket. Or the whale he sent you after that.”

“Well, that whale can be irresistible. So, you think we've found Stephanie?”

“Yeah,” Steve sighed.

“Whoa. What's that about?”

“What's what about?”

“That hefty, 'this is a huge problem and I don't know what I'm going to do about it' sigh. Steve, a man does not sigh heavily like that when things are going right.”

Stubbornly, Steve reminded Sam, “We don't know that yet.”

Giving him a sharp look, Sam decided. “I know what this is.”

“You do not know what this is.”

“Yes, I do.”

“There is no this to know about.”

Shaking his head quickly, Sam rejoined, “Oh, yes there is. This is about you being a dad and not having a handbook on it. I saw you looking around in the library. Man, you have an obsession with those things.”

“I was not looking for a handbook-”

“Gimme your phone,” Sam said as he swiped it from Steve's jacket pocket. “Let's see, recent google searches: how to be a good dad, how to be a dad to a girl, how to be a good dad book-”

“Give me that!”

“Steve, you have a condition. It's called, 'wanting to be good at everything.' The bad news is, it's terminal.”

With a glare, Steve gave Sam a light shove. “Shut up.”

“Hey, there's good news too. And if you don't shove me over the back of the couch, I'll tell it to you.”

“What?”

Sam spread his arms out, reminiscent of a prophet. “Being a good dad is easy.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really. Look, you think there's a magical formula for parenthood. You do the right steps at the right times and everything works perfectly. But I've seen all those manuals on war you have in your apartment- and now I really know why you don't have any ladies hanging around- and I know how you fight. You work off the cuff just like the rest of us, because war doesn't go by a standard, right? Especially when it ends up just two guys, one-on-one. No, you have to do everything on what is working in the moment, figuring out which pieces have stood up and where the guys are breaking through your lines.

“Being a parent is all off the cuff, too. And worse, because people are so unpredictable on an individual basis. Once you know your kid, you can make good calls. But you, Steve, need to start at the very beginning. You don't know Stephanie, and she doesn't know you. Before you lay down any rules and think she'll follow them, you have to get her trust. And before that, you two have to get to know each other.

“Which is why,” and Sam produced a slim deck of cards like a magician. “You'll need these, my friend.”

“You want me to teach a nine year old to gamble?” Steve demanded, incredulous.

Rolling his eyes, Sam told him, “Now I know you're thinking the worst of everything. Look, the cards are to help you two learn more about each other and become friends. Each one has an activity. Right now, the easy stuff is on the top.”

“Easy?”

“Well, a lot of the guys in my unit were parents. When we came home, and I started doing those sessions, I heard it a lot: 'I'm home, and I'm so happy to see my kids. . . but I don't know how to connect with them anymore.' I heard that from them so much, and I thought, 'Sam Wilson, you need to help your brothers out.' So I did a lot of research and talked to a lot of teachers and moms and psychologists and then I thought about my first best friend I ever had.

“I met him in Kindergarten, and he was best friend because we sat next to each other five days out of seven and his favorite color was red, just like mine, and he loved jumping off the swings, just like me. That was all we needed for five whole years of friendship. But we didn't know that stuff about each other because we said it. We knew because we hung out and had fun together. That's what these cards are about: getting you in a place where you can hang out and have fun, together.

“But for guys who come back from war, and guys like your best friend,” Sam added, “Some kinds of having fun are easier. Stuff where you stay home, and stay pretty quiet. Then you can move on to playing outside, maybe getting a little loud and even muddy. And when you all feel safe, there's stuff like going to the zoo, and other noisy, busy events. It's to help you guys take it all one step at a time. And, because she's a girl, there are few things she might prefer over what boys would want.”

“Like what?”

With a wide, suspicious grin, Sam informed him, “You'll see.”

Steve looked at the deck and calculated how much time and effort Sam had left out of the picture. It was not just Bucky who needed a process like this, and Sam must know that. Most days, Steve did okay, and even better than okay, but he still never seemed to sleep right, never seemed to shake the nightmares completely. Here was a way to avoid things that made him fidget while still doing stuff that should help him bond with Stephanie. What had he done to earn a friend like this?

“Thank you, Sam.”

“Hey, I wasn't alone when I got back, so I'm just paying it forward. Maybe with a little interest, because you had best believe I am not going to hang back here and wait to find out if she can clear a pantry like you. You'll see, Steve. She'll like you.”

Steve gave a small smile. “Yeah.”

He waited for his partner to leave before picking up Stephanie's photo again. At some point, he would have to tell the others about the decision he had made last night. As much as he wanted to get close to Stephanie, Steve could not ignore reality. Stephanie needed safety, constancy, and someone who knew how to handle a girl as scarred as she must be. Neither Bucky, nor Steve, was that person. Wanting to be a good father had to be more than laying down rules and making kids toe the line. Steve had to be honest: he could not take care of both Stephanie and Bucky, and no one else could even get close to Bucky. He would make sure she found a good home, even if that took a while. But they could not keep her, no matter how much they might want that. Stephanie deserved better.


	17. Warning

Rolling around on her freshly made bed, Stevie supposed this was not exactly why Daddy had tidied it up, but it was nice. He had not said anything when she had thrown herself on the blankets, either. Just a tousle of her hair and then he had gone. It was almost time for lunch, and the idea that there was a set time for lunch outside of school still amazed Stevie.

She felt a lot better now, too. There were vivid scars on her belly, but the stitches were gone and the skin did not itch, either. Plus, she could roll around on the nice smelling soft blanket without any warning pangs.

Daddy was also softening a little. Yesterday he had let her explore the backyard without hovering. Not for more than twenty minutes, but it was bitterly cold out. According to the thermometer nailed to the porch, it had been twenty-five. No snow, however. She had never had a white Christmas, and given the date, she probably was not going to get one. And, as it happened, the backyard was extremely boring, so she had not lingered beyond looking past the white cord fence line to the barn in the neighbor's field.

Nice as the bed was, something smelled intriguing in the kitchen. Stevie slid luxuriously to the floor and raced down the hall. Daddy never told her to be quiet or not run in the house. Instead of shouting or snapping, he only looked at her when she skidded across the linoleum, and then caught the hem of her shirt in his hand to prevent her from sliding full speed into the oven.

“What are you making?” she asked, looking at the ingredients laid out.

“Meatballs.”

“Oh, I love meatballs!”

He gave a crooked smile. “I know.”

She stood up on her toes. “What's the ground beef for?”

“The meatballs.”

“Oh. I thought it was for tacos.”

Patting her head, Daddy gave her a nudge toward the sink. “Wash your hands. I'll show you.”

Try as she might, about fifteen minutes later, Stevie was squirming inside. Why did this have to be so hideous? Meatballs were delicious, not slimy around her hands or cold and squishy. But she obviously had to do this, so she set her jaw and kept mixing. When Daddy said they were ready, teeth clenched, Stevie turned the slop into palm-sized balls and then set them on the foil.

That was when Daddy laughed. Surprised, because she had never heard him do more than chuckle, she turned her eyes to him. He was definitely laughing at her, which made her blush. There was nothing funny about her, was there?

“What?” she demanded.

“You, chickadee, are a lot like your dad. That face!”

Embarrassed, she told him, “But it feels disgusting, like guts.”

“Nothing like guts,” he promised her. “You don't have to help if it's that terrible. Go wash up.”

“But-” Stevie began.

“I can finish these just fine without you, I promise. And then there can be meatballs for lunch.”

“Are you afraid my face is going to stick that way?” Stevie asked teasingly as she pulled the stool up to the sink.

“Only for the general public's safety,” he replied, and then went back to unconcernedly turning gut-mush into balls.

Although she managed to slough off the coating on her hands, it took much longer to rid herself of the feel of all that grease. In the time it took her to no longer feel like she was wearing slimy gloves on her hands, Daddy had finished making the batch of meatballs. He joined her at the sink and helped her rinse thoroughly. She sniffed her hands and winced.

“Yuck, I smell like meat.”

“Looks like I'll be cooking you up for lunch,” Daddy chuckled, and then playfully scooped her up to pretend to nip at her ears.

“No, no,” Stevie giggled. “People are not food!”

He tickled her ribs and said over her ensuing squeals, “But you smell like food!”

“Not food! Not food!”

He made various silly Cookie Monster sorts of noises as he threatened to chew on her ribs, her neck and her feet. After much screaming and many tickles, he released her to go play in her room. He would be frying the meatballs and since the fat might spatter, Stevie was not to be messing about in the kitchen. Normally she would hang as close as possible or work in sneaky snuggles- he never seemed to protest those- but she really wanted meatballs for lunch.

Back first, she flopped onto the bed, earning a muffled metal scream of protest. The ceiling was pretty boring, though, so Stevie rolled to her tummy and glanced out the window. Same boring beige fields with a graying barn in the distance, and then mountains galore even further out, all navy and white-capped. It would make a decent painting if the sun would come out. And the sunsets were always beautiful, even through the clouds.

However much she wanted to pretend to paint it in her mind, yesterday Daddy had brought her what he called a reader. They had sat down in the living room and he had tested her from it. Then he had fetched three more, and told her to use each one for a different subject, meaning she had four slim volumes. She was in the sixth reader for Reading and Spelling, although she was supposed to read the poems and stories from the rest, the first for Geography and Agriculture, the second for Civics and New York History, and the fourth for U.S. History and English. Aside from that, Daddy had a brand new algebraic textbook for her to work from. School was not giving up on her, apparently.

Picking up the first reader, Stevie settled in to read. As she read, she could pick up the lessons on Geography and Agriculture. Probably. Hopefully it would not be as boring as she suspected.

After a few moments however, she became aware of the sound of a tree shaking. The wind was not blowing, though, that she could hear. It was a somewhat rhythmic rustling to the ear, and so she got up and went to the window looking out into the yard.

The noise was caused by a horse. Staring, Stevie watched the dark brown beast rubbing its shoulder against one of the trees. Eyes wide, she turned and ran out into the kitchen, dropping the reader onto her blanket as she zipped by.

“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”

He caught her before she could slam into the oven. “What? What is it? What's wrong?”

“There's. . .” Stevie had to catch her breath. “There's a horse. . . out in the yard!”

“A horse?” His tone suggested Stevie was bothering him for unimportant things.

Nodding, Stevie tugged at his arm. “It's a real horse. It was rubbing on a tree and everything!”

Now she had his attention. “Inside the fence?”

“I guess.”

He opened a drawer at the end of the counter and pulled out a gun. Stevie goggled. Of course, she knew he had a gun, because he had told her not to touch it, at all, ever, never ever, never ever _ever_. She just forgot about it, and she had kind of assumed he would keep it in his room. Then again, maybe it was not such a bad idea, since Stevie had never realized it was there, nor would she have looked for a gun in the kitchen drawers. Not that she would go searching for his gun.

Pushing her gently behind him, Daddy headed toward the back door. Since he had not told her to stay in the kitchen, Stevie followed quietly. His eyes darted as he looked out the window onto the porch behind the house. She peeked too, spotting the horse with its nose down in the sparse grass. Then Daddy motioned her to stand farther back, and she had to give up her view.

Though he turned the knob very slowly and stealthily, Daddy slammed the door wide open. Stevie ducked behind a corner and peeped out in awe. From here, he looked like a policeman, with the gun up in front of him, matching his line of sight perfectly. But in moments, he had let the gun drop to his side. His thumb slid along its back, and then he tucked it into the waistband of his jeans. Finally, he waved her forward.

“Horse,” he said unnecessarily.

Even from the porch, the beast looked enormous. Either Daddy's rough handling of the door did not faze it, or the lure of the last green plants in sight was too strong. Head down, it was almost as tall as her daddy. It was certainly more interested in salad than he was, though.

“Can I pet it?” Stevie asked, equal parts fear and excitement. It was a real horse!

“That depends on him,” her daddy informed her, stepping off the porch. “You might make him nervous.”

Though Stevie wondered how he had arrived at the gender, she was more surprised by how easily he approached the massive beast and patted it on the shoulder. He stood calm in the face of that great head sniffing along his hands and arms, then turning a bit to get a good look at him. Then Daddy reached along and rubbed its spine, gently ran his hand over one leg and patted the shoulder again.

“Come over, slowly,” he called. “Just walk. You run at a horse and he'll give you the scare of a lifetime.”

Stevie jammed her feet into her white sneakers, stomping down on the backs because it was easier than putting them on properly. As ordered, she went cautiously. The horse definitely knew that she was coming, lowering his head and pushing his nose forward to sniff at her as she came nearer. Edging slightly more away from the animal, she ended up with Daddy between them.

“He isn't going to eat you, chickadee,” he teased, gently pulling her back to where the horse could have a good sniff.

“Open hand, palm up,” Daddy then directed, so she could be introduced to the horse more properly. There was sniffing and occasional horse noises, and then he gently prodded her in the chest with his nose.

“What's he doing?” she whispered.

Chuckling, Daddy slipped his hand into her pocket and brought out a soft peppermint. “Strictly speaking, you should not give anyone handfuls of candy, but for horses, peppermints are good in moderation.”

She watched him lay the peppermint in the palm of one hand and let the horse neatly lift it up. As the animal chewed, Daddy stroked its mane, fingers untangling a few snarls carefully. Quietly, Stevie eased her way in close to him, until she was snug against his side.

“How do you know so much about horses?”

“I had to use them occasionally,” he murmured, and then gestured beyond the horse to the fence. “He's broken through this line.”

“Well, it's only string and he's very big,” Stevie pointed out.

Shaking his head, Daddy corrected, “It should be electrified. The cording covers the metal so animals won't be cut by whole wire, and makes it more visible to everyone.”

“But if it was electric, wouldn't he be hurt, Daddy?”

Daddy walked over to the broken fence, and picked up the white line. “The power is out. No buzzing. Maybe the neighbor is repairing the fence. One box can power the whole thing.”

“What about the horse? What if he goes on the road?”

Daddy shook his head at her, and to her right, the horse did much the same. “Horses aren't stupid. He won't hang around in the middle of the freeway. Besides, they prefer grass. Once he's gotten what he can from the yard, he'll go back to his water and grain.”

“Oh.” Stevie looked up, and further up, to try and gauge the animal's intelligence. He responded by lowering his head again and rubbing gently-she presumed he meant it to be gentle- against her shoulder. Given their relative sizes, she rocked more than a bit on her feet.

“He's used to kids,” Daddy noted as he coiled the rope from the fence and laid it neatly over one rail. “Maybe a little too comfortable with them. All right, you beast, it's time for lunch for humans.”

Daddy scooped her up and away and carried her back inside. Helpless, she waved to the horse, who snorted. She giggled, but sighed too. She had not ever met a horse before, and hardly got to spend even five minutes getting used to one. At least in recompense for the lack of horse there would be meatballs.

After lunch, she started to feel tired. On this point Daddy was always immovable: naps were good for sleepy people, especially ones who happened to be named Stevie. He tucked her in and kissed and tickled away her pout, like always. It was not easy being almost eleven, but he did know how to make a little less terrible. Another kiss, and he went to clean up after their meal, leaving her door open a crack and the curtains closed. Stevie snuggled in further, determined to get the nap out of the way as quickly as possible so she could see the horse again.

The next thing she knew, there was a hand on her throat and others grasping her hands. Something heavy was on her legs, too weighty for her to free them from the blanket. As Stevie tried to struggle, the fingers around her neck tightened. She did her best, but she was pinned and quickly gasping for air that would not come. Even opening her eyes did no good, because she could not see beyond sparks of white and red.

“The asset is secured, sir” someone said.

“Good,” purred a voice very close to Stevie's ear. “A two for one deal is always best. We have the asset and now we have you.”

The grip on her airway eased, and she was able to see through the white fog enough to make out a face. Pleased to see her, it was doubly menacing for its agreeable smile with brilliant white teeth. The man leaned in again, suggesting through slight pressure that he could go right back to strangling her.

“It's so good to see you, breeder. And I bet it'll be even better to put you to use, too.”


	18. Yellow Wind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: NON-CONSENSUAL.

He awoke with a jerk, in a panic. His baby, where was she? But he could not stand, could not move from this sitting position. They had chained him down, tied him as he remembered in fitful dreams. An animal, barely capable of thought, struggled to take control, to rip these bonds from his limbs and seek blood.

“Control, this 221. The Asset is alert.” There was a pause. “No, sir. The Breeder is quiet.”

Steffy must be near. The boots walked on, and he studied his cell, pushing back the rage to find room for purpose. Close quarters, to prevent him from hiding. He might be shackled tightly, but it was not something that he could not uproot, providing him with a handy weapon. All he needed was to know where she was. Once he had her, there would be a way out.

Pushing back his rage brought out something else: fear. He had been in this situation, many times. Didn't he know how this would end, how it always had? He must find her, protect her from what they were capable of. Already they had stripped him of his shirt, shoes and socks, making certain he would have little between himself and their demands.

Why had he not come yet? It had been such a risk, but she had pleaded so sweetly: for a family, for hope, for love- all things she badly needed. And he should see her, their precious little girl. Looking at her, he would understand that he had never been forgotten, never been a mere ghost.

To his left, beyond his room, he heard shuffling, and then a clink of chain pulled taut. A whimper. As he shifted his body to begin his assault on his own restraints, there was a click of a tongue.

“Now, now, Asset. You must be able to guess what will happen to her if you try that.”

Suit impeccable and inky, the man in front of him practically exuded the mixed scents of danger and power. He sported a HYDRA tattoo on his inner left wrist, which was obvious when he reached down to caress Bucky's face. But his smile was cruel, the sneer of a carnivore. He buried his fingers in tendrils of dark hair and yanked back hard.

“You really are a masterpiece, aren't you? Our founder must have been so very pleased when he discovered such a gem. I wonder,” and he purred in obvious pleasure, “How did it feel to have his approval? Did you enjoy being his little plaything? I've certainly heard rumors about how much you like to comply.”

Although he fought it, decades of conditioning made feigning indifference too arduous. Yes, this had begun in Johann Schmidt's laboratory, and it was something he had kept from Steve. How could he say that he had learned to love being the captive, devoured by their lust? At least they hurt him, so he could call on those scars to remind himself of how sick he was.

“You are well-trained,” noted his superior with amusement. “Your compliance will be well rewarded.”

“I will not comply,” Bucky grated out. He had to. Steffy was too important, his little chickadee, his precious angel. They could not take her. He would not let himself be weak now.

“No?” The man stepped back and nodded to someone down the corridor.

There was a terrible thud, boot striking flesh, and a little gasping cry. The bastards! Bucky tried to shove himself to his feet, but there was something about the way those dark eyes were watching him. More than mere entertainment was hidden in those depths.

“Now, Asset, you have a choice before you. I can make her life as painful as any. I can give her to my men now, let them use her as they would very much like. After all, that _is_ her purpose. So, is it worth defying me over something so trifling?”

Breathing hard through his nose, he bit down on his lip. He knew what he would become if he gave in, knew he would lose this self he had only just found. But his baby! Promise after promise was unraveling before his eyes. Why had he not come?

Softly, with feigned tender admiration in his voice, the authority told him,“You have done such wonderful things for us, Asset. I, myself, have always stood in awe of the works of Bucky Barnes. No one else has changed this world as much as you have. You brought our future into reality.

“She is a part of our future too. But we can teach her, make her life comfortable, give her every luxury the descendant of our great leader deserves. After all, she is the last to carry even a part of his DNA. I cannot imagine him extending any kindness to those who would torment her.”

He turned away, calm and aware that Bucky could not choose to fight him. Even though his fingers itched for that slender throat, even while his thigh muscles began to ache to sprint to his child, Bucky held himself still. Her life was in his hands in this moment. If he could hold out long enough. . . surely she would escape this.

“She does not have to suffer,” the man remarked, almost to himself. “Why, with the fine mind she surely possesses, so many things are possible. But I leave it to you, Asset. Will you be rewarded, or do I let her be raped now?”

Bucky let out a sob at the picture before his eyes. “I- I will comply.”

“Very good.” The smile was back. “Very good indeed.”

He walked away, leaving the door open. Body stretching to its limit, he was locked in a battle to hear what was happening, to know she was okay. She had to be okay. How would he live with himself if they hurt her?

Murmurs, then a sniffle before she called out, “Daddy! Daddy! I want my daddy!”

“Enough,” rapped out the man in the suit. “If he does as he is told, you will see him. Let the doctor tend to you. I certainly do not wish to require him to punish you.”

As his breath caught in his throat at the very thought of striking out at Steffy, he heard the footsteps returning. He let his gaze drift toward the floor. Compliance would be rewarded. It was all that he had now.

“You will come to my office, Asset.”

“Yes,” he said quietly.

He made no move as a grunt unlocked his chains, except for the one that led to collar around his throat. This was offered to the superior, and he used it like a leash for a dog. At least Bucky already knew what this felt like. It was not fresh humiliation when he had known it so many times before.

But it cut him within to walk past where he knew Steffy must be. He could not see her behind the door, had no idea what they were doing to her. All he could do was hope, and wait, and try to keep her safe the only way given. When it was dark, he knew she would fold her little hands together and talk so trustingly to a god that had never been, and believe that he was listening. Just as her father had done when he had made those phone calls to a man who never came.

His superior had hook ready for the leash, even. But he made Bucky kneel on the floor beside his desk, and kept the chain in his own hand. For half an hour he took reports from dozens of underlings, and Bucky could not stop himself from learning that his tormentor was named Colonel Smith. The looks- fearful, confused, lascivious- Bucky could pretend not to notice. Those were nothing new.

In a lull, Smith went to the door and closed it, leaving no way to look outside, except through the slim window in the odd fifth wall of the room. He returned to his chair, so Bucky assumed he must be looking at sensitive materials. Then Smith tugged hard on the leash, and Bucky found his face in the man's crotch. The smirk he looked up at told him that it was time to earn protection for Steffy. Still, he swallowed. No matter how often this had been done to him, no matter by whom, it never seemed to get any easier.

“Pierce did keep a rather tight lead on you, didn't he?” Smith commented. “He only lent you out to his favorites. But then, you are a delightful treat. Such a pretty sight.”

Bucky said nothing. What was brushing against his nose was all the commentary he needed. But, like a great many terrible people, Smith liked to talk, to verbally savor the encounter. Worse, he would be the kind to drag it out.

“Where shall we start?” he mused. “I have had a great many plans for you over the years. I would not want to rush things.

“But then,” he laughed as he unzipped his fly, “we have so much time to work together. Now, comply.”

Tongue obediently sliding over warm flesh, Bucky almost longed for the more forceful Schmidt. At least he had given Bucky the dignity of struggling, all of it in vain, but he had enjoyed watching the helpless soldier try. And he had never been so callous as to make Bucky pretend to love the attentions he had pressed upon him. Schmidt had been a rapist and known it. These others, they feigned affection to get off on beating him later, as if Bucky did not know they hated him.

Smith brought his attention back to the present by grabbing his hair and pulling him off of his cock, Bucky narrowly avoiding accidentally scraping the appendage with his teeth. “I've had better from back alley whores. Surely The Winter Soldier can do better, for his daughter's sake.”

Like a punch to the gut, bringing up Steffy winded Bucky. He had been trying to avoid knowing what he was doing, but Smith was not going to let him. There was no escape. For his baby, he would have to experience it all.

“Why don't you start again?” suggested the colonel, his expression gleefully wicked.

With care, Bucky took the shaft in his good hand. No HYDRA member, bar one, had ever wanted to be touched by the metal arm. Slowly, grip firm, he stroked up to the head, and over, then flipped his hand so that on the downward stroke his thumb touched the root first. Smith's cock was not very long, but he had a solid thickness that a lover would appreciate.

After ten good repetitions, Smith's hand began to linger near the back of his head. Taking this to mean that he wanted Bucky to move along, he tilted the dick in his hand toward his face. He wished he could drift away again. Swirling his tongue in his mouth to gather saliva, he stroked in short movements, being certain to bring his thumb gently to the frenulum.

At last, he could no longer put it off, and Bucky slid his tongue right to the urethra, earning a curse from Smith. The taste was too strong, and quickly he used his tongue to spread the fluid over the head, and then his fingers smoothed it away down the shaft. As he slid sticky fingers lightly over the cap, Bucky let his tongue glide down into the trousers until he found the sack.

“Oh, very good,” praised Smith when Bucky took one globe cautiously into his mouth. The part of him that had been trained thoroughly responded, and Bucky knew that he was becoming shamefully aroused. Smith could not see that yet, but he would.

Hoping to encourage an early cessation of activity, he left the balls cupped in his hand and went back to the penis itself. Smith was no Steve Rogers, and Bucky had no trouble taking him down his throat to the base. As the colonel swore breathlessly above him, he moved back to the tip, and then took him completely inside again. Per his suspicion, Smith grabbed his hair and began fucking his throat, jamming his cock roughly in and out without regard for Bucky's need to breathe.

But he was made of sterner stuff than others. Before he could spurt a hot load into Bucky's mouth, he pulled Bucky away, and then shoved him back hard. Eyes alight with unholy joy, he growled out,

“So, our little breeder has a whore for a father?”

Again, the mention of his baby tightened Bucky's chest. He did not want to think about her right now. Not when faced with the next thing Smith said.

“Show me your asshole, Asset. It's time I used you properly.”

Although he had become better at concealing his erection in situations like this, Smith noted it at once, sneering. He did not deign to stroke it, as the Red Skull had frequently done, but paused Bucky's display for a long minute to drink in the sight. Then he made a rolling movement with one hand to signal Bucky to carry on.

Unlike some, Smith was polite enough to provide Bucky with lube, so that he could put on a show for him, sliding his fingers inside of his asshole, stretching it while the man simply devoured him with his dark eyes. Then, to Bucky's surprise, he slid in his own finger to brush against Bucky's prostate. It had been so long since anyone had done such a thing that Bucky moaned loudly.

“Very like a whore.”

Then Smith batted away his hands, pushing hastily and greedily into Bucky's ass. For all the preparation, it still hurt as he was stretched. But his traitorous body was already moving his hips back, and Smith rewarded that with a firm slap against his ass. When Bucky did not stop, because he could not, Smith slid his belt from its loops and began to use that, noting with obvious delight,

“You certainly are HYDRA's whore. Your compliance is your reward.”

Ass now sore, and most likely red, Bucky did not respond. Again, Smith was no Steve Rogers, but he had enough to stimulate the prostate without working too hard. He was thinking only about his orgasm, but thanks to the training, and the thickness of the cock he was taking, Bucky was most certainly going to shamefully spurt all over the floor.

Smith dropped the belt and pushed Bucky's head toward the floor. Holding him down at that angle, he began thrusting harder, and more erratically, signaling that he was as close as Bucky. The harder he forced Bucky, the more Bucky liked it. Roughness had always been something that got him off.

Now, however, what brought him over the edge was Smith jamming himself all the way inside and growling as he filled Bucky with hot cum. His hands had left Bucky's shoulders, but they grabbed his sore ass cheeks and squeezed. That was all Bucky could take. He muffled his cry as best he could with his arm, but he knew that Smith would soon be aware that he had lost control.

First, however, Smith ordered Bucky to turn around and kneel, knees spread apart. As the cum began to trickle out of his ass, and Smith watched hungrily, Bucky realized this was another part of the show for the colonel. He did his best to provide, letting the cum seep out without trying to hold it back.

When it seemed there was none left, Smith sat back. Then he lashed out, striking Bucky's right cheek hard. He was not the first to mix brutality with sex, and Bucky was not entirely surprised when the man rapped out,

“Clean up that mess, you dirty bitch! Lick up your filth!”

Keeping his hands well away, Bucky backed up and leaned over, carefully lapping up all the evidence. He made certain to use varied strokes, and prolonged the service as best he could, but he did not miss anything. Finally, Smith ordered him back to his spot beside the desk. While the colonel had dressed, he left Bucky nude, giving no command to allow him that dignity.

After several long minutes of silence, during which Smith had smoked a cigarette with no regard for Bucky, the colonel looked at him with a dangerous gleam in his eye. “I wonder if your daughter is as big a slut as you are. Well, my men will find that out. All in good time.”


	19. Foehn

It was a long and awful flight to Portland, and an even longer drive to this ghost town. Most of that was nerves, Steve could understand. Nerves and Tony-cannot-shut-up-Stark.

Admittedly, it would have been a lot better if Steve had agreed to the use of their jet. Faster, too. The trouble was, the Avengers needed to be responsible and stay low-key whenever possible, and since Tony did not believe in flying under any kind of radar, the teachable moment had to be seized. Even for his best friend, and his potential daughter, Steve was not going to bend the rules.

Potential daughter only, because as Stark had rightly pointed out just before becoming petulant, they had only been able to test the DNA analysis provided by Jillian Schmidt. Until Stephanie's DNA was on hand, it could still be a clever ploy, or a case of mistaken identity.

What currently annoyed him the most was that Stark simply would not leave him alone. Steve wanted to process, to prepare how he would approach both Bucky and Stephanie. She must be scared to death right now, even if Bucky would never hurt her. After all, she had been kidnapped, and shot.

And, secretly, Steve had wanted a little while to dream. Not that he knew anything about parenting or little girls, or that he and Bucky could ever possibly be parents of a little girl, God only knew. But that did not stop him from wanting to pretend, like they had all those years back, in that cesspit of an apartment, that they could adopt a kid and take care of them. Stephanie was pushing the limits of those idle thoughts traced out between himself and Bucky, if she really was theirs. Unfortunately, he'd been given precious little time to fantasize about holding the little girl between them, snug under a blanket while they read a bedtime story, or going out in the world to do whatever it was modern families did. Hopefully they still played catch. Steve was good at catch.

Or he could have been picturing Stephanie in a new dress. All kids loved getting a new outfit, he was pretty certain. Things could not have changed that much. Having seen that picture, he now was sure she could be adorable when she was in the mood. Bucky would have to pick the style, but Steve thought she would look sweet in a soft pink, or even a rich navy. Right now, he ought to be picturing her with little bows in her twin tails and maybe a pearl ring. Girls still adored those, right?

Instead, however, Steve was using up almost all of his mental energy in not strangling Tony for trying to tell him how to handle his best friend. Scarred Bucky might be, but he was still Bucky. Even Natasha had not stood in his way. There was probably a reason why both the assassin and Sam had abandoned him for a different vehicle. At the moment, even Clint was not remaining totally cool under the onslaught of advice.

“We're here. Finally,” noted the marksman with sarcastic relief.

“You are not coming,” Steve told Stark firmly. “I'm going in alone.”

Stark just stared. “You're serious. You're actually serious. I thought this whole time you were doing that because you didn't want me to go, but you really do intend to go in there with HYDRA's super killing machine alone, and, I note, unarmed. Rogers, you are a nut.”

“Bucky's my friend.”

“Bucky was your friend. What's in there, that is not. Look, you guys were friends for maybe twenty years? He's been in HYDRA's legion for over fifty. He is not going to be interested in hugging it out.”

Setting his jaw, Steve informed Stark, “You don't know him.”

“Neither do you!”

“All right, all right,” Clint interjected. “That's enough. Cap is going in, alone, just like we planned all the way back in New York. Maybe he doesn't know the new Bucky well, but he knows him better than you, and, more importantly, this guy will recognize Steve. The last thing we need is another firefight. But if it comes to that, we should all know what the hell we're doing. Now get in there before he decides to barricade the door. If he could hear you two bickering, he'd probably be driving away by now. I know I wish I could.”

Steve opened his door and pretended not to hear Stark grumbling, “It's still a stupid plan.”

He was no more than halfway up the drive when someone hollered, “Hey! I have a bone to pick with you!”

“Oh good,” Steve heard Natasha murmur behind him. Of course she had followed him. No meant no to everyone but Natasha until Steve said it specifically to her.

The man who approached them looked straight out of the old west, from his dusty cowboy boots, jeans, leather vest, to his weather-beaten once-white hat. He was also, most definitely, working himself up into a lather. Smoothly, as if she had decided the stranger was talking to her, Natasha stepped up to meet him.

“Hello there. What seems to be the problem?”

“Look, I don't want to seem un-neighborly, but when you start cutting my fencing, I have to speak up. I know electric isn't ideal when you have a kid running around, but I don't have enough wood yet for a sturdy fence. Couldn't you have come and talked to me before breaking my line?”

“Well now, I didn't know anything about that. Why don't you show me where your fence was cut?” Natasha asked brightly, eyelashes fluttering just enough to be noticed, but not so much as to be ridiculous. Steve had no idea how she did it.

However, she left him with a clear path to the front door and Steve was not wasting any further time. It startled him that Bucky would do something so blatant as cutting a fence for Stephanie, but electric fencing was dangerous. As a city girl, she would not know anything about it, either. Besides, it was very close to the highway, and if it was as noisy out back as it was here on the porch, she might not be able to hear the telltale snap and buzz.

Nervous as hell, Steve glanced at both front windows, but the mulberry curtains were shut and no more than a sliver of the gray carpet was visible to him through either one. He was going to have to wing it. Wonderful. For a moment like this, he would have liked more of a plan.

Carefully, he rapped on the door, admiring for a moment the grain of the dark wood. For an obviously aging house, it had lovely bones, at least as far as this kid from Brooklyn could discern. It certainly perched in its corner calmly, almost like a bald eagle on a postcard. Big, but certainly well-settled within its skin. The colors were a lot more boring than a bald eagles, though, gray and more gray. Probably the reason for the mulberry curtains, because this might look like a funeral home without it, albeit with a lot less lace.

Steve could make all these useless associations because his knock went unanswered and his brain was trying very hard not to focus on the fact that somewhere in this house was his own flesh and blood. Knocking again, a little louder, he contemplated how outrageous the situation was. If his mother was alive, she would probably spank him. Not for sleeping with Bucky, because he suspected she had known about that, but for not thinking ahead and realizing that Captain America's blood was hot property. Something should have been set up to protect it, and Stephanie. He really ought to have talked with Peggy, because Howard had been a nice guy, but a little too close to the experiment itself- kind of like Tony.

Besides, Steve had done far too much reading on girls and women today. In the sea of over-information, he had dredged up a goodly amount of facts he did not like. It seemed that somehow, between the war and now, people had lost their respect for women as equals. Just like the Africans had gotten the short end of the stick after the Civil War, women were set back to nearly before they had the right to vote. That was not right at all, and he had given short shrift to a number of senators who thought the All-American hero would appreciate listening to them degrade their female interns, or reporters. His mother had fought to her death to provide for him, and he honored that fight. Hell, he did not expect women to be anything but his equal, given how he had grown up so much weaker than they, and in school the ones who had trounced him in every subject had been girls. Look at Peggy! He hated to think what the world would have been like if she had been given the serum, mostly because it would probably have been robbed of even the pleasure of a quick dust-up, since she was so organized and aware.

So that was on Steve's mind, seeing as how Stephanie was a girl, who would grow up into a woman in this world. The idea that she would discounted because she had been born without a dick, as one blog had put it, rankled his soul. It was base bullying, putting someone at a disadvantage for something they had been born being, rather than anything they had done.

Rather than get angrier at people he could not punch- not from this distance- Steve reached for the doorknob. Bucky could have done a number of unpleasant things to it, but it was not likely. There was Stephanie to think of. So he grabbed it with confidence and turned. Unlocked? A tingle slid up from the base of his spine and he felt his gut twist.

With care, he opened the door and stepped inside. After he had closed the door gently, he called out, “Bucky? Stephanie?”

Too still, he knew at once. There was a car outside, small and silver, and admittedly beautiful for a less expensive vehicle. That fact told him they had not left. No lights. In the slightly dim room, he almost tripped on a shoe. Small, dirty, ragged white sneakers. Steve sucked in a breath and held it as he moved into the kitchen.

A gun, standard military issue black handgun, lying disregarded on the floor. The silver handled knife embedded in the plaster above the sink. Glass on the floor. And, yes, blood.

He tiptoed now, quiet as a big man could be on old wood floors. Pictures had been knocked askew, and two had fallen, leaving more glass. The back door was akimbo- the fence! Fuck, it had not been Bucky at all. Someone had set this up with care.

Not yet ready to give up on the thin thread of hope that Bucky had gotten through this, Steve carefully opened the nearer bedroom door. Definitely an adult room. No adornment beyond the same curtains as the living room, and a bed not slept in for some time. There was dust, a lot of dust, on the plain white bedspread. The dresser had been used, a drawer stuck partly open with cotton shirts in shades of black exposed.

He moved on, feeling more a trespasser every moment. The next room was open, and he lost his breath now. Ripped from the bed, a blue blanket had been dragged almost to the door. A book lay violated, its spine being bent horribly as the pages were forced open by the weight of the cardboard cover. There were scratches in the old paint on the door frame a tad below shoulder height. So Stephanie had been taken.

Awkward, he stooped to pick up the book with its faded black on brown cover and came face to face with a vivid memory of Bucky studying at the tiny kitchen table, he and Steve working hard on geography because they were both terrible at it. The wicked and winding geography of their own New York streets had unraveled under their feet countless times, but in the yellowed pages of the reader, east and west confused themselves with north and south, and where the hell was Constantinople and was Vienna a real place at all? He could almost feel his mother's hand on his shoulder as she set them back in alignment with the compass rose, could smell the lye on her skin that left her with the cleanest hands in the tenement.

Bucky's mother's reader, he thought. So he too understood how important her education was. Setting it reverentially on the nightstand, Steve looked at the little girl's room. She was, he noted with a swift smile, as messy as both her dads, despite her lack of things. Or maybe it had been Bucky, digging through the closet which had too many baby toys and books inside to suit a girl almost ten. Her white painted dresser had clothes inside, not brand new, but good quality. Too many remained for him to believe they had taken some kind of day trip.

Then he turned to lift the blanket. With an efficient snap learned in the military, Steve had the blanket laid flat and corners ready to be tucked in. Then he noticed the symbol prominently featured in the center. He had to sit down. Of course. This was why Bucky had called him. She needed him too.

As dizzy as he felt, as torn inside with fear, as wracked by guilt knowing that they had surely been snatched by HYDRA, Steve made himself stand up. He had phone calls to make, and quickly. He only paused to take a white book, possibly Stephanie's diary. As rude as his intended invasion of privacy was, she might have left a clue inside those simple covers.

“Natasha,” he called as he made it out the back door, taking note of the three pairs of shoes, two small, one large just at the base of the first step.

“They were taken?” she inquired, but not in surprise. She was more than smart enough to have been suspicious from the neighbor's introduction. One day, Steve would be that clever himself.

“Recently.” He looked at the neighbor. “When did you notice the vandalism?”

“Uh,” said the man, clearly thrown. “Well, I got in late last night. My gelding was by his trough like usual. But this morning he was over attacking the tree, there. The lady who used to own the place actually paid me to put up the fence to protect it. It was hers.”

“And when you went to town, everything was fine?”

“Yesterday morning, yes. I tend to walk them about ten at least every other day.”

Natasha sighed, but Steve reminded her, “Farmers have to have routines, Nat. It isn't his fault. Up to feed them around dawn, go to bed with the sun, is that right?”

“Well, yes, actually. I have a small herd of cows and a bull, two goats for that back pasture with the blackberries, two dozen chickens- those are my wife's- and this here gelding, who is a right pain in the ass to me, but he loves children. In the summer, we use him to give riding lessons.”

Tapping her lips with a finger, Natasha looked down the road. “And they wouldn't want to come through the bull's pen, your cows would be farther out for good grass, the chickens would be noisy, but a single horse could be coaxed out of harm's way, nice and quiet.”

He knew what she was implying, and knew they would quickly find evidence this was true. Right now, though, they were losing time. Where they had entered from was not important. It was where they intended to go afterward.

Leaving her to work out her theory on entry with the neighbor, Steve went back around the house to the cars. Tony was making a show of being aloof, while Clint had sprawled himself over the hood. Why? Probably only he knew. Steve merely tipped him a nod, and one for Sam who was climbing out of the other car now, face grim.

“They're not in, are they?”

Shaking his head, Steve looked at Tony. “You said you had a direct line to a general with opinions about people like us, and worse ones about HYDRA. I need you to prove it.”

Grinning, Tony said, “It would be my genuine pleasure, Capsicle. I don't think Talbot will enjoy it very much, though. Rumor has it someone formerly with SHIELD put his nose out of joint recently, and then HYDRA did too.”

“Let's hope he's more angry at HYDRA, then.”

Steve clenched his hands into tight fists as Tony pulled out his cell with excessive good cheer. There was no time for messing around anymore. Both his best friend and unexpected daughter were in serious danger. Now it was up to Steve to be the man Dr. Erskine had believed he was, all those years ago. Now, he would have to truly be Captain America.


	20. Gale

“Captain Rogers, it's a pleasure,” the general said, hand out. Steve grasped the appendage, trying not to contrast this meeting with how Colonel Phillips had treated him back in '44. Now he was a pleasure, enough so to breach military protocol.

“Thank you, General Tabot, sir.”

“We owe you more thanks,” Talbot noted. “You brought the monsters out of the dark for us to deal with.”

“It's those monsters we're here about,” Steve pointed out. As much as the admiration felt good, considering the past, he did not know how much time they had before HYDRA decided Stephanie, Bucky, or both of them were extraneous to their needs.

“And we're in luck, as it happens,” Talbot said, taking a memo from a female officer. “Thank you, Anderson. We have a man on the inside. Yesterday he managed to slip us notice of their location. Not that they have chosen very well. Complaints from the natives about people illegally setting up on their land have come in, and, stupidly, the last sheriff who went out to check them over did not come back.”

“And there was no police response?” asked Stark incredulously. Talbot gave him the hairy eyeball.

“We told them to stand down, just after you called. HYDRA has access to some very dangerous technology, and we have no idea which cells have what. Our people are better prepared to deal with them.”

Steve nodded, and held back the question, “But when do we move in?” Talbot was the one in charge right now. However, he was going to have to put his foot down about one thing.

“Barnes is my responsibility, sir.”

“Good,” Talbot responded. “I was going to say, we don't have much that might slow him down in the first place. But you understand when some of the even higher-ups get wind of him, he will eventually have to stand trial.”

“Oh, I'm sure it won't come to that,” Stark replied, after having his hand none-too-gently swatted away by the female officer as he hovered over a computer. This time Talbot shared a look with Steve. At least they both agreed he was a nuisance, and probably delusional.

A younger male hurried up with a clipboard, which he handed over to the general after a salute. His straight cut mustache twitched. Then he nodded to the young man and looked at Steve.

“Let me lay out our plan for you, Captain Rogers and see what you think. You certainly have the best knowledge of how to properly deploy your people.”

Half an hour later, Steve felt much better, and less like he should simply charge in. When Natasha tapped his arm, he barely twitched. She gave him a curious look.

“You really want Sam and me to go for Stephanie? You don't want to do it yourself?”

Right, there was still that to discuss, because Steve could not just give orders to Natasha. Nobody just gave orders to her. Even Fury had seemed to phrase them more like an offer. Therefore, Steve now had to awkwardly try to explain his reasoning, which he knew was inadequate, if not plain wrong.

“I don't know what they've done to Stephanie, but I know they'll keep Bucky away from her. I can't do both. And I need someone who knows what to do if they decide she's expendable.”

“That's your reasoning?”

Steve gave it to her a little more straight. “That, and she's going to need somebody she can trust. You can be that somebody.”

Natasha folded her arms. Not a good sign. “You want me to charm your daughter, like I charm people to get intelligence?”

“No, I want you to be yourself. Nat, you are a really good person inside. And kids like you, especially little girls. They're a pretty tough crowd.” Steve laughed awkwardly. “Trust me.”

“It's funny, Rogers,” she said in obviously fake contemplation, “I never took you for a coward.”

Steve spread his arms wide. “I am not avoiding her!”

“Then why don't you-”

“Because the last person who hurt her was a man!” Steve finally snapped. “I thought you could figure that one out.”

Now she rolled her eyes at him. “Did you read the report Clint put together? At all? Favorite superhero: Captain America. Oh yeah, she's going to be so upset to be rescued by you.”

“Of course she- wait, really? I thought- I mean pretty much everybody loves Thor so-”

“Tell me about it,” muttered Natasha. “I am serious, however. You're her favorite superhero. And her favorite colors are red, white, and blue. Also, she loves chicken soup and apple pie. If she was any more American, I think we'd have to put her down for our own safety.”

_I can make chicken soup,_ thought Steve. _I can make very good chicken soup._

“All the same, I want you and Sam to go for her. No one else can handle Bucky, and neither of them can wait. You go in with me, but once we know where one of them is, we'll have to split up.”

In theory, this was a good solution. In practice, either Natasha did not agree with it, or she was very adept at getting cornered elsewhere. Sam stuck close to Steve as planned, but Nat was off on her own five minutes in. A facility like this, temporary corrugated metal built around a possibly preexisting brick structure, meant they were punching holes through everything. Natasha could catch up easily. Or that was what they thought until in the last room Tony politely removed the door from its hinges, and they saw the stairs.

“Man, I hate underground HYDRA facilities,” grumbled Sam.

“Hey, at least we got through the thorns and don't have to answer questions from Justin.”

“Who's Justin?” Sam and Steve asked together.

“It's a children's book- you know what? Never mind. You philistines,” Tony huffed. “Get some culture.”

Sam muttered, just quietly enough to not be picked up by the mic, “I don't need any of your culture, thanks.”

At the base of the stairs, they came to a hallway, with three choices, down and to the left, directly before them, or down and to the right. Rhodes, always close on Tony's heels, volunteered to go straight up the middle. Tony took the right, for the option to say he was always right. That left Steve and Sam to head to the leftmost corridor. At least this time around HYDRA was paying the electric bill, and lights were plentiful.

From the echoing off the stone, it was not uninhabited, although their corridor seemed fairly silent. Stark kept up a running commentary, both sharpening his tongue on his opponents, and pointing out how clever they were not to have ended up trying to cut into the local sedimentary deposits, and getting basalt instead. For himself, Steve would have preferred less clever as he used his shield as a battering ram again. Today would have been a great day to contact Thor. He did take out doors with such grace.

The first several rooms were empty, completely devoid of anything outside of their four walls. No windows, no suggestion of electricity, not even spiderwebs or dust. To be safe, Steve cut ahead to the end of the hall, making note of a new stairwell. Then he trotted back to Sam, who was eyeing a section of wall with suspicion.

“Looks awful clean to me,” he noted, pointing to the floor. Steve could see the hairline crack at once. Stark was not the only one who could find secret doors.

It was not as simple as just a push, but Steve had long ago found that his shield made an excellent makeshift crowbar. By placing the shield's edge into the crack and then slamming his fist down on it, the door's outer cover of rock shattered. It would be nice, Steve thought as he shook the life back into his fingers, to have things as easy as Stark frequently did.

The door led to a much darker duplicate of the same hallway and about five goons who certainly did not know what was good for them. Not only did they try to take him on one at a time- did kids these days learn nothing?- but they also all seemed excited to punch his shield. While Steve had a moderately sore hand, they all broke theirs. Such enthusiasm.

Quickly, he checked the doors along the passage. Most opened easily, but the second one from the end on the right was locked tight. Feeling a little too chipper about it, Steve jammed his shield's edge against the seam and kicked it. There was something viscerally satisfying about how it came right off its hinges.

That tiny ego boost was utterly destroyed by what he found inside. He had seen a lot of things, stuff that dredged itself up in the dark of his dreams, but never anything like this. She was a baby, by God! For a long moment Steve paused, a rage building up so strong that he felt nothing when he collared the man except a chill like ice. He only came to himself again once the man was down and unconscious, and Sam said urgently,

“Cap, I need you here.”

And then he was kneeling beside her, unable to stop himself from grabbing her from the floor. Even Sam's objection did not make him pause. He just had to make this not be true, and when her little hands caught his uniform, Steve thought his heart would break. HYDRA had always been the shadowy beast, but never like this. This was not supposed to happen.

“Jesus, Steve, ease up. I need to examine her.”

She whimpered and clutched him more tightly. “It can wait, Sam,” he decided.

“No, it can't. Steve, I have to look. She could be bleeding out inside.”

When he looked into Sam's serious brown eyes, Steve knew this had to be done. But damn it, she did not have a shred of protection from anything. So he eased her into a position where she could still hold on to him, and reached back to grab his spare shirt from his back pouch. As soon as Sam leaned back to call for immediate evac, Steve slipped the white shirt over her head. At least she might get a moment of modesty.

She was so much more fragile than he had expected, to be honest. Kids were sturdier now than they had been, but she could have been straight out of his neighborhood. Not that she would look hot anyhow, not after-

“Ah, I knew you'd find her first,” Natasha said as she came in. “Haven't seen armed and dangerous yet, but I expect him to be very unhappy. How are you doing, kiddo?”

Stephanie gave her a dazed look, but Nat surprised everybody by getting right alongside of her, and stroking her hair back from her forehead. “You're doing great. Just hang in there for a bit more, okay? Sam's a good medic, and we've got more people to help you on the way.”

It had not even occurred to Steve that she would need reassurance like that. But since she already had such a good grip on him, he let it go. There was not much else he could do.

“Hey Cap,” Tony said over the comm. “Your friend's left arm is metal, right?”

“You found him? Do not engage!” Steve ordered.

“For a man who was an ice cube for seventy-five years, you really don't know how to chill,” remarked Tony. “The Tin Soldier is already taken care of. Well, he's coming to you, anyway. And we've got another dead head of HYDRA. Nobody seems much inclined to become the new one, either. It's like watching the old one get mangled is somehow off-putting.”

“Imagine that,” Steve muttered. Then he looked back at Stephanie and borrowed a page from Natasha's book. “Hey, Bucky's on his way. He's going to be so glad you're all right.”

Big blue eyes looked up at him, and she squeezed a little tighter. Was she afraid of Bucky? But he would never lay a finger on her-

Nat interrupted his train of thought with the tactful addition, “I'm sure he's been worried about all the lies these assholes have been telling you. ”

Of course. Of course these, these, these _fucking cowards_ would tell her that nobody wanted her. That it was her fault they had- Steve took a deep breath. He had already taken care of one of them. And now he hoped she had seen it. Because that was how monsters should be dealt with, up front and without mercy.

“Medics incoming,” Sam told them, turning his attention to the door.

Steve started to sit back, but Stephanie's hands were still holding him tightly. Knowing they could not get her onto a stretcher if she was clinging to him, Steve slid his fingers underneath her clenched ones and got her to loosen her grip. She was starting to fall asleep, to his amazement. Too much to take in at once, he supposed.

“We're gonna get you out of here,” he promised.

To his bewilderment, the medics were led by Dr. Helen Cho. She tipped him a nod, and then shooed them all off, leaving Stephanie alone with her. As Sam explained what he had guessed of her injuries, Steve found himself looking at the door. Surely Bucky was coming. He would need to see Stephanie. Of course he was coming.

While Dr. Cho eased Stephanie onto a stretcher herself, Natasha told Steve, “He isn't coming here. He went out the western exit.”

“Why?” Steve asked, and she gave him a look.

“Why don't you and Sam go find out? I'll stay with Stephanie. Dr. Cho must have brought the cradle, or part of it.”

That had to be true. Reluctantly, Steve took Sam and headed to figure out where the hell Bucky had gone now. Why the hell would have to wait for its explanation, much like what the hell he was supposed to do with Stephanie. He had to hand it to Bucky, nobody else could make things so complicated.


	21. Anticyclone

Like all too often recently, Stevie woke up in a strange bed. This one was definitely a hospital bed, the kind with plastic sides and sheets starched so much that she could have used them as a ramp. There was a woman sitting by her bed, reading a book. It was an old one, like at the library, without even a name on the spine.

“You can't read this one, unless you read Cyrillic.” She put the green book down and smiled at Stevie. “Hungry? I've got Barton out on a supply run. I saw what the cafeteria has, and I don't think it's changed since 1980.”

Stevie did not reply. There was not much to say, and she was uncertain what was expected. Gently putting her hand over Stevie's the woman went on,

“I'm Natasha. Steve and your dad are playing, for unknown reasons, hide and seek. Probably what HYDRA did to him, and to you, brought up some bad memories. I know that can knock you off-balance. But I'm sure when they sort it out, he'll be up here as fast as he can. Until then, I'm watching you, and Clint is too.

“Dr. Helen Cho is your physician, because she understands the cradle best. She may ask to look at your scars, or for a MRI or X-ray. She's allowed to ask. You don't have to say yes, though. It's strictly for research purposes, and you have every right to decide for yourself. So, if you don't want to do anything, all you have to do is tell us. We'll listen. All the time. Except for Clint. He'll fall asleep on you.”

“Besmirching my good name already? That has to be a record,” said a male voice from the doorway. “And here I am, bearing sustenance.”

“Arby's hardly counts,” Natasha corrected with a smirk.

“Manna from heaven,” countered Clint.

“Not even close.”

While they bickered in a friendly way, Stevie tried not to feel totally overwhelmed. Two of the Avengers (the actual Avengers!) were standing around in her room, like she was 100% part of the group. It was crazy.

“Okay, we'll let her decide,” Clint declared, fishing out a sandwich for Stevie. “After all, I only risked my arm sneaking these past the nurses' station. Pretty sure they could smell them.”

“Over your armpit stench? You give them too much credit.”

“Well, at least I'm not Tony. Pretty sure he would buy the hospital and have an Arby's built in.”

“Are you sure he hasn't bought the place?” quipped Natasha.

“Now that's a good question. Wow, finished already?”

Stevie wiped cheese sauce off her cheek and stuck her finger in her mouth, feeling slightly guilty. But she was super hungry! Without thinking about it, she brought her hands together in front of her chest and tapped the fingertips of her hands against one another twice.

“More? Okay. Boy, you sure take after-” He paused after handing her a new sandwich, and then switched to his hands. “Are you deaf?” his fingers asked.

Embarrassed, Stevie tapped her forefinger and middle finger against her thumb, a little like a child would imitate a turkey gobbling. It was easier than talking, and her mouth was full anyway. She avoided looking at either Avenger as she gulped down the second sandwich.

“You might take some time to savor it,” Natasha said coolly. “Then again, with that garbage, it's probably best.”

“Are you kidding me? Arby's is delicious. I had three on the way here.”

“That would be because you're a disgusting pig.”

And they were back into it, leaving Stevie with the entire bag in her lap. Somebody had to eat these before they went cold. After three more, she felt less like there was an empty hole in the middle of her chest. Weirdly, she did not feel like she should vomit, even though five sandwiches in less than half an hour should have her over a toilet bowl. Not even a warning twinge bothered her, just the vague sensation that she could have space for one more.

“Wow,” Clint repeated. “That was a lot of roast beef.”

Natasha looked slightly smug. “I told you she would be hungry.”

“Guess so.” Clint took another chair and signed, “Better now?”

His shapes were not the same as Livvy's, but she could follow them pretty well. With her all fingers tucked in, she made the hand nod twice. Livvy always did things in two's. Clint did them once, like he expected to be understood immediately. That was funny, because Natasha was ignoring his hands altogether. Surely someone he knew used signs? Otherwise, how did he get so confident?

He signed something else, which she did not know. So, carefully, she signed back, “Don't understand.” Livvy had taught her that first, and then the alphabet. Stevie had learned to read fingers before she could read books. Now she was starting to believe what Livvy had told her: different people signed different ways.

He finger-spelled, “Have you always known sign language?”

“No,” she signed again, the tap of fingers on thumb less emphatic.

“Where did you learn?”

“Livvy,” she spelled, and then drew her knees up to her chest. Talking about Livvy was hard. She missed her.

“Do you like hot chocolate?” Natasha interrupted. After a tentative nod from Stevie, she directed Clint, “It's in the cafeteria. Swiss Miss.”

“I guess I'll go get it,” Clint said in a long-suffering tone that was just this side of a whine.

“One for her, too,” Natasha ordered.

“You're evil,” was his parting shot. She ignored it.

Looking at Stevie she asked quietly, “It didn't hurt when you moved, did it?”

Stevie shook her head. More aware now, she was in awe that it had not. After everything that had happened- she shrank into herself, trying not to remember.

Natasha put a hand on her shoulder, then gently rubbed her back. “Dr. Cho was worried. She hasn't used the cradle on many people your age. But it seems like it worked. That's why she'll want to check you over, to make sure it didn't miss anything. You can ask Clint about what it's like. He's been a constant patient of hers. Never learned to dodge, the genius.”

It made sense, then, why Natasha was so rough on Clint. He worried her. So she sharpened her tongue on him, a phrase which Stevie had only ever seen in print before. Livvy had been like that too, with Stevie. She had not wanted Stevie to protect her. It all had to go one way. Not that it had saved anyone grief, in the end.

“I'm starting to think you don't want to talk,” Natasha remarked. She smiled to stop Stevie from thinking she was mad about it. “I just have to warn you, Clint's the only one who can sign worth a damn. I can fumble through a few things, but I can barely spell- English isn't my first language, and memorizing all those eccentricities is not my idea of a good time. But that's about it, unless you know military signs. Of course, Tony will become good at it overnight if you let him. I'm guessing, though, that you're not an expert. Could be funny to watch him try to teach you, and Clint get annoyed with him.”

She tousled Stevie's hair and added, “You don't have to talk until you want to.”

Nodding slowly, Stevie tried to get a grip on the situation. Was Daddy not coming back? Then, was it true that he did not want her?

“There's a long face. I hope it perks up for hot chocolate,” Clint said, passing her the Styrofoam cup.

It was almost too hot for her to hold, and full of marshmallows. She hated marshmallow. Daddy knew that. But he was not coming back.

“Uh, it's no good, huh?”

Natasha gave her a hug. “It's okay, it's okay.”

Stevie took a shaky breath and tried to stop crying, but Natasha looked her in the eye and explained, “No, sweetie, I mean it's okay to cry. Get it out.”

Somehow, Clint disappeared and came back with a new, warm blanket to wrap her in. “Obviously I'm no good at hot chocolate, but petty theft I can do.”

“Not great at inspiring the next generation, either,” Natasha muttered, and made shooing motions at him.

Stevie cried for a while, and she _did_ feel better as if she had been needing to cry. Only babies needed it, though. Keeping up a steady stream of non-judgmental reassurance and tissues, Natasha was like one of those super great moms that came to have lunch in the cafeteria with their kids at school. Like Mom had on her first day, when she had been really scared but refused to tell her. Somehow Mom had known anyway, and there she was with a paperbag lunch just like Stevie. But Mom was dead.

Natasha made her lie down again, and Stevie did it because she was not going to argue with Black Widow, _the_ Black Widow, for anything. As she started to curl up, she felt a dull warning throb from her side. Even though she merely winced, Natasha was instantly on top of it.

“Up with the gown, please,” she asked firmly. Looking over Stevie's stomach and sides, her expression turned grim. “Clint, get the nurse.”

The nurse turned up with a warm grin and firm handshake. “Hey there. I'm Jesse. I know you might not want a guy poking around, so let me get your permission to look at you first.”

Stevie looked at Natasha, unsure, but then a woman bustled in with iron gray hair and the kind of pinched look that made it seem as if she had a permanent duck-face scowl. Heart sinking, Stevie shrank back from Miss Torres. Ignoring her, as usual, the caseworker shrilly demanded,

“Just what do you think you are doing?”

“Uh,” Jesse said, looking blank and slightly overwhelmed, like most people did when Miss Torres decided to badger them.

“Well, you can forget about it. I want her discharged immediately.”

“Ma'am, I'm can't do-”

“Then find me someone who can,” snapped Miss Torres. “My charge doesn't need to be kept here, and she certainly shouldn't be hanging around with the criminal element.”

In response to this, Clint looked somewhat sheepish, but Natasha just looked Miss Torres right in the eyes and asked, “Which one?”

Sniffing loudly, Miss Torres turned her gaze on the nurse. “Did you hear me, man?”

“Uh, I'll get the doctor, but ma'am, shes not ready to-”

“I'm sure a medical _professional_ is a better judge of that than you,” Miss Torres said acidly, and Stevie winced.

Somehow, Jesse found his backbone again, and informed her, “She hasn't been cleared for discharge ma'am. You will have to wait until Dr. Norris makes his rounds, in an hour.”

For whatever reason, that sent Miss Torres into a fury. Five minutes later, and Stevie had her hands over her ears as Jesse, a doctor, a security guard, Clint, Natasha and Miss Torres were engaged in a six-way argument where nobody was listening and everyone was just about shouting. General opinion was that Miss Torres, as her legal guardian, had the right to remove Clint and Natasha, but she could not sign Stevie out without a further exam. Nauseated, Stevie realized she was going back into the system, back to _them._

“What in the green grass is going on in here?” came the demand of an older man. As he stepped in, his tan uniform marked him as a sheriff, rather than a normal policeman. He looked around, glaring and possibly scowling insofar as any expression could be discerned under his bushy dark mustache.

“I am being denied my rights as this young child's guardian, for no appropriate reason,” trilled Miss Torres, “And I demand you have her turned over to me immediately.”

But this man was made of much sterner stuff than the nurse or doctor. “And what paperwork do you have to prove you are her guardian?”

“I already submitted it at the front desk!” huffed Miss Torres, but there was a cagey look in her eyes, and suddenly Stevie knew: she way lying. How could she be lying?

“I don't think you did, ma'am,” said someone else, behind the sheriff. “Because if you did, it would be invalid. And I'd like to know exactly what you think you are doing with my daughter.”

For a second, Stevie's heart rose, but then it got itself properly aligned when she remembered that she did not know that voice. It could not be Daddy. But then, who?

“Your daughter?” warbled Miss Torres. “How could you possibly be-”

Now he stepped fully into the room, waving a bundle of papers. “By DNA testing, and a judge's decision this morning. I admit, I got in so quickly by leveraging my notoriety, but I passed all the tests on my own. So now, I'm wondering why you are attempting to kidnap my child.”

Miss Torres drew herself up. “I am her caseworker-”

“No, ma'am, you aren't. You were her caseworker, I'll grant you that, but this paperwork would have come across your desk over two hours ago, since I had it faxed right from the courthouse. Stephanie is not your responsibility, and you came here expressly to take her.” Captain America folded his arms. “I'm not going to allow that, obviously. But I am going to ask the sheriff to arrest you for attempted kidnapping, and to go check your house and workstation, because I have a good idea what it is you meant to do with her, and a deep suspicion about why you would need to do that.”

“Arrest- You can't arrest me! I have every right-”

“Glad to hear you know them, ma'am,” said the sheriff, pulling a pair of cuffs from his belt. “Shall I repeat them for you as we step outside, and go down to the station to talk?”

Somehow the group herded Miss Torres out of the room, and Stevie was left by herself, except for Captain America. She had to be dreaming. _He_ could never be her other dad, no way. That kind of stuff only happened when she was daydreaming her way through math-via-democracy (aka lots of shouting, and people getting offended). No way was the Captain America her dad. No possible way.

“Uh, hey,” he said, putting his hand on the back of his neck. “I, uh, I didn't intend for you to find out that way. I mean, y'know, that was more, uh, abrupt than I meant for. . . Well, uh, well. . . So, I don't actually know your mother, and so I didn't know about you until- that's not important- well it kind of is, but. . .”

He had turned very pink until he finally trailed off, sighed and started over. “Let's do this again. I'm Steve. Through some crazy circumstances, I'm your father. So's my best pal, Bucky.”

Stevie stared, while in her mind everything went all capitals. _BUCKY BARNES IS MY DADDY. STEVE ROGERS IS MY DAD. MY LIFE IS UNREAL. I HAVE BEEN CALLING MYSELF STEVIE AND MY DAD IS STEVE. THIS IS TERRIBLE._

“I don't know all the science- scratch that, I know none of the science. Just that, uh, you're my daughter. Bucky isn't- he's not- he's- it's complicated,” sighed Captain America. “I don't think, for a while, you should see him. He's. . . a mess. He needs, well, a lot of things, but mostly rest and a doctor.”

So it really was true. Daddy was not coming back for her. And Steve did not want her to see him. It hit her very quietly: he did not want her. That was why he was so awkward. He was working his way up to telling her that he was going to send her somewhere else, probably a long way away, where he and Daddy could forget about her.

“I don't know a lot about kids, but I found a good school in New York. Arts, and stuff like that. It's kind of far, but I think we can make it work.” He hesitated a moment, and then added, “If you really felt you could handle it, I'd let you board in the city, but I'd rather have you home safe.”

Home? What did he mean? He was going to send her away, right?

“We can talk about that later, though. I, uh- well, I don't really know you, yet, so I can't say what's best, or what you might want. So, let's aim for something a little more immediate, okay? We're only ten days away from Christmas, see, and I have no idea what you want. I've heard that writing letters to Santa is still a tradition, and, uh, I hope you don't mind if I peek at your letter before we take it to the post office.”

Stevie was boggled. Christmas? Letter to Santa? She had never written one in her entire life. Probably. What could she even ask for? And her stomach still hurt.

“All right, now that we have your actual guardian present,” the doctor said as he entered, “Let's have a look at your stomach, Stephanie. Does it still hurt?”

Stevie nodded, a little unsure. Giving her a reassuring smile, the doctor pulled up a chair. He explained,

“It's not surprising you have some aches and pains, but it's better to be sure that's all they are. Your friend thinks you have a bad bruise on your side, so how about you tuck in the blanket around your legs, nice and tight, and then we'll lift the gown to take a gander at that mystery bruise?”

To her surprise, Captain America came to sit on her other side, and took her hand. “If you get uncomfortable, you just tell him no. That's your right.”

“I do need to look, but we'll go slowly, I promise.”

But slow stopped the moment he got a good look. “We need to take you for an X-ray, right now.”

“Why?” Captain America asked, leaning forward.

“This pattern is called Cullen's sign. It is indicative of internal bleeding in the abdomen. An X-ray of her chest cavity can show us where the bleeding is, and how badly she's bleeding. Then we can talk about angiography and surgery.”

She found herself whisked from one waiting room to the next. In the X-ray room, she had to sit alone in her underpants with a lead apron over her lap, moving from one pose to the next. Then, she was wheeled into another waiting room while the doctor and surgeons conferred. Captain America had disappeared, but he quickly returned, bearing a small teddy bear. A small Captain America teddy bear. He looked supremely embarrassed.

“I thought it might be nice to have something, uh, for you to hold, but this is all they had. Sorry.”

Shyly, she took the bear. It even had a little shield. While she ran her fingers over the soft fur of its head, he reached out and did the same to her head. She looked up in surprise, and he pulled back.

“Sorry. Just thought you'd need- sorry.”

She held the bear close and looked at him. Then, she mustered her courage together and said softly, “Thank you.”

He put his hand on her shoulder. “It's going to be okay. We'll make it okay.”


	22. Backing Wind

It had been days since he had seen them. After the capture, with Steve looking at him with heartbreak in his eyes, he had not been able to run anymore. So he came, meekly, to this place and its regimentation. The order had been plain: he must be good, until they returned. Even then, she. . . Steve had said she needed to rest often.

But she was so fragile already. He had tried, remembered the things she would need, wrote them down for him so that she would not be left alone in the dark, or made to wear pink, or have her inhaler forgotten. Would that be enough? Words could not take the place of everything she deserved. It made him anxious, and he paced. That woman- redhead, high threat- Natasha: she took him to the gym alone, so he could work out his aggression, but he was afraid and did not fight.

The knock on his door, soft, jolted him from his train of anxiety. There was a pause, and then Steve looked in. He smiled: a little awkward, always sheepish.

“Hey, I sure could use your expertise. Take a drive with me?”

Of course he would. For Steve, anything. Everything. He found himself sitting in the cab of a truck, holding Steffy's backpack. As Steve started them on a long stretch of highway, he directed,

“Look in there, will you? Pull out her, uh, whatsit- her binder, I think they call it.”

Lifting the item out, he found himself looking at dozens of cats, carefully cut out from magazines and pasted onto the cheap plastic front. He looked at Steve. Steve looked back.

“Well? Notice anything? Something that might be important?”

“They're cats, Steve,” he says, and it sounds so natural to be slightly peeved and earnestly confused at him. Like they used to be before- he closed his mouth and looked away.

“No, I meant- sorry. Sorry, I mean that they're all the same kind of cat. I thought they were Siamese- you know that fancy and annoying kind of cat that always crawled up your leg the closer you were to snob hill? But I found out they're not. They call them Snowshoe, for their feet. I, uh, I looked them up on the internet- very useful- and you know, they sing? Sort of. And they can be pretty smart.”

“Why?”

“Good breed- oh, you meant why look them up? Well, I. . .” Steve slowed down a gear. “You and I, we're going to be busy. A lot. We can't help it. At first I thought, well, that I should find Stephanie a real family because it isn't going to be easy to do this family thing. But we can't do that.”

“No,” he agreed, trying to get his heartbeat back under control. Apparently, Steve was still a pea-brained baboon.

“But if we're gone- and we will be, Buck, I can't help that. If we're gone, she'd be alone all the time. Maybe not alone; more like lonely. That isn't fair. So, it's almost Christmas and I thought we'd do something about that.”

Even in the window, he could see Steve's ears turning red. He was embarrassed, like he'd been caught hiding the fact that he was hungry because no one had offered him a bite yet. And Steve wanted to give Steffy a pet. Her favorite animal. The sneaky little bastard.

“Where?”

“Uh, I found a place. They have some kittens. I thought, well, a kitten's right, isn't it? A full grown cat would better, maybe-”

“She won't care.” He looked over at Steve.

“She might,” Steve said, apparently miffed. “She might want a cat. Kittens need lots of attention.”

That could not be all. Steve Rogers was a lot of things, but simple was not one of them. He just kept watching him, until Steve mumbled, “And kittens are cute.”

“Softie,” he murmured at Steve.

“It's not for me!” came the expected protest. “I just- Buck, I don't know what to do!”

Softly, he replied, “Me either.”

Reaching over, Steve caught his hand. “But we're going to figure it out, you and me. Just like always. You and me, to the end of line.”

Twenty minutes later, they pulled up in the broad driveway of a small farm, complete with the classic red and white barn. The house, on the other hand, was small, gray, and looked about as new as the beat-up tractor with moss growing out of the seat. Being overrun with cats just made the picture complete.

Except there were not any moggies in sight. The screen on the door was perfect, unlike what he would expect from someone with cats to spare. Steve knocked, and stood back, casting a look over him. He smiled that dopey grin of his, the one that had drowned him.

“I am about to look like a fool. You could at least enjoy it.”

“I am,” he said softly. Steve flashed him one more brilliant smile before turning to the opening door.

They were welcomed and ushered inside. There was one cat, a monster fluff ball which gave them both the stink-eye before turning around and pointedly marching off. The older woman who had let them in explained,

“Oh, that's Ragabag Tom. He pretends to not be interested in anyone, but he's a Ragdoll, so of course he loves to be touched. He'll only come in if you have food, though.”

Steve hesitated and asked, “About the kittens. . ?”

“Out in the laundry room. They're sleeping right now, or you'd hear them. Sultana, their mother, would be all over you too, if they were up.”

Another cat, a much sleeker and more obviously upscale feline, sauntered in. He ignored them, and went straight for the lady's feet. His meow sounded more like a baby gurgling than a cat's demanding call. Unlike most cats, he kept it up as she petted him in her lap, mixing purrs with vocalizations.

“This is Rex, and he was supposed to be the father. But he jumped the fence to chase the neighbor's cats for two weeks, and so Tom was the one to woo Sultana. So far none of them have his coat, but they all do the flop when you cuddle them. Very handy for getting them to Vet's.

“So they are half Snowshoe, half Ragdoll, like I said, but both breeds come from the Siamese line. They are all as talkative as this fellow,” and here she gave the cat an undignified kiss, “but they do differ a little bit in personality. I was wondering what you were looking for in them?”

“Well, a companion animal, mostly. Our little girl, Stephanie, needs a friend, and she's always wanted a Snowshoe.”

The woman smiled, and utterly failed to remark on the plural possessive, making him think maybe Steve was not completely insane. “And what kind of kitten do you think would suit her? Very active?”

“No,” he said, knowing now why Steve had asked him along. “She needs quiet, and gentle.”

“Ah, I see. There are a couple- do you prefer a boy or a girl?”

Steve shook his head. “That's not important to us.”

“How about I bring the ones I'm thinking of out, and you can play with them?”

“We'd love to,” Steve beamed, and she laughed.

“I know. They're terribly cute!”

Shortly, Steve was on the floor, surrounded by little cats. Some of them were far too wild, skittering on the hardwood and getting their sharp claws stuck in the wool rug. One was too shy, disappearing all together. The rest seemed pretty excited by Steve's presence, climbing into his lap and attacking his hands. He was fairly certain none of them would suit Steffy. She needed more calm.

Then a very gentle tap on his thigh alerted him to the last kitten. It was a beauty, with beautiful blue eyes and snow white shoes on its paws, accented by chocolate boots and a deep brown tail. Sniffing delicately, it was obviously intrigued by him, but had the manners to wait for his move.

He almost could not help picking the kitten up, so he could kiss its sable nose and tickle its tiny ears. Cuddling it to his chest, he was rewarded with a purring meow and more dainty sniffs. Then it snuggled in and closed its eyes. It was the perfect kitten for Steffy.

Looking up, he met Steve's eyes. The bastard was grinning at him. He ignored him, and said instead, “What about this kitten?”

“She's a darling,” the owner agreed. “Looks like her brother was not up to visitors, either. He's a doll, himself, but a bit skittish.”

The conversation quickly devolved into kitten care, and when they would bring the kitten home. Instead of listening, he focused on the kitten and tried to picture Steffy's reaction. She would be floored, most likely. This was a very cute little ball of fur.

Of course Steve was the one to think this up, and of course he knew nothing about cats at all. From the general tone of the discussion, it sounded like a lot of work. Fortunately, he was going to leave all of that to Steve and just take the purring, and the warmth. And Steffy's face, lighting up with joy and wonder.

That was his plan, at least. But Steve was ready to take her now, and so was the owner. Her first shots had been done, and she was scheduled to be spayed within the week. If Steve took her to the Vet, then there was no reason why he could not bring the eight week old kitten home tonight. Except, for example, common sense.

Since Steve possessed a below average ration, he found himself holding the kitten in his arms as they drove back. He turned a glare on Steve. It had almost no effect, probably because it was after dark. He was going to have to talk, and now, so Steffy would not catch on to her surprise early.

“Steve.”

“Yes?”

“A kitten.”

“Yup.” There was a long silence. Like always, Steve could only take so much, and he blurted, “But she's very cute and it means we don't have to come back for her.”

“Steve.”

“And she'll get used to the environment better the sooner she comes with us.”

“Steve.”

“Besides, she really seems to like you, and I thought. . .”

Glancing down, he noted the way the kitten had backed herself down into the front of his coat for further warmth.”Steve?”

“Yes?”

“You're a complete nancy.”

“Shut up,” Steve snapped back, but he looked pleased. The idiot.

Now he had company in his room, although she decided to disappear underneath the bed first. He dug her out and put her in a chair, swaddled in a blanket. That was good enough. Burrowing in, she purred herself to sleep. Steve grinned at him, clearly thinking he had done something great.

“She needs a litter box. And food,” he informed the addlepated monkey.

“Oh, right! I'll go get that stuff.” Steve made as if to leave and he had to grab him by the arm.

“Stephanie.”

“What? She can't go to the store- oh. Of course, Bucky.” His whole face softened. “Why don't you go sit with her for a while?”

It felt better, here in her room. Less like he needed to be on edge. Part of it was the impressive security, but mostly it was just. . . her. She was sleeping again, cuddled up underneath her blanket holding that dumb bear Steve had given her. Hopefully no one had noticed the other bear that Jillian had made. It was not like he had asked her to make the thing.

She was going to love the kitten. Trust Steve to find the perfect something for Christmas. He had always been good at that- at least, he remembered it that way.

Gently, he tucked the blanket in around her more snugly. He would have to come up with something for her from himself. Something even Steve could not think of. Not only the dress, but something of more substance. There was enough time to dwell on that, here in the welcome quiet of her room, holding her hand.


	23. Microclimate

“Okay, let's round up some firewood, and no, you can't use your powers.”

There were groans all around. Apparently using your powers for everyday tasks was not okay with Steve Rogers. He told them often enough that it would make them lazy. Not that Natasha or Sam complained, and Clint seemed to complain about everything in a general way.

Stevie had looked at him hopefully, but it was her place right now to stay on the couch and be nearly smothered in blankets. As it had been for several days. She could have held the door for everyone, at least. Better than sitting here with nothing much to do, even if the TV had more channels than were useful and anyone would bring her food or a book or anything she asked for. She remained, somewhat stubbornly, bored.

While everyone else trooped out into the snow, which she was beginning to think she would only get to look at, Steve paused by the sofa. “I know you'd like to help, but doctor's orders. Besides, I'm going to need you in tip-top shape once we have the fire going. You're going to be a big help.”

Sighing, she snuggled down into the blankets again. Later was not now. And it probably did not involve snow. Or Daddy. He did not appear to much like anyone else. Not well enough to talk to.

She did, but. . . nobody was making her talk. She had tried, a lot, but nothing seemed worth saying. For Daddy, this was nothing he worried about, she was fairly certain. Instead of asking her what she was trying to say, he would just pull her in closer and read a little more of the book in front of them. So she felt a little bit like a silent, useless lump.

And cold! Stevie was constantly chilled, even snuggled up under the blankets. Today she was in a snuggly sweater dress Clint had brought her, leggings and wool socks. Even with all that, she needed the extra layers provided by the combination of throws, her Captain America blanket and the rather cumbersome duvet.

The first round of firewood came in with a clatter. A lot of clatter. She jumped, and Steve noticed. Giving the others a frown, he instructed,

“Take it easy. You're here to stack them, not make a noise they could hear on the moon.”

“Nobody's on the moon anymore, Steve,” Clint said.

“Says you,” muttered Natasha.

Steve reached over and tousled Stevie's hair. “We'll be done soon, I promise.”

She was pretty certain she had turned red in a heartbeat, but he was already heading back out. The others complained about the wind and the workload as they followed, but Natasha tipped her a wink, and Clint remembered to wave. So, unhelpful and colder than ever, Stevie sunk back into the couch.

Arms crossed and lower lip resolutely bitten down on, because there was only so far she could go before she was sulking, Stevie tried to come up with something to do. TV was out; the last thing she had watched had been suddenly and unpleasantly loud. Books she preferred to save for Daddy. She did have a pencil and paper, but no inspiration to draw. Daddy had given her his phone, but he had already beaten all the levels on Candy Crush, so that was no fun.

The door slammed open, followed immediately by Pietro swearing, and his sister scolding him. At least, Stevie presumed so. It was not English.

“You clearly need to work on your grip,” Clint noted, coming in on their heels. He settled his load on the pile, and turned to check on Stevie. “You okay?”

She nodded. Except she was getting tired of being startled. It hurt her stomach to tense up to see what was going on. But everything made her tense.

Steve came in last, carrying about twice as much as everyone else. After unloading, he sent Pietro and Wanda back out for the kindling. Natasha caught Clint and dragged him to the kitchen to make sandwiches. That seemed good to Stevie; she was getting hungry. On the other hand, if it was time for lunch, it was also time for those horrible pills.

While Pietro and Wanda noisily added kindling to the smaller bin by the logs, Steve and Sam talked quietly about the fireplace. Everyone was busy. And everybody was, probably with no malice, ignoring Stevie again.

Until Wanda sat down beside her on the couch with a bright smile. “Are you excited for Christmas?”

That was one heck of a loaded question. It was not that Stevie hated Christmas. She had always wanted a big one with lots of people getting presents and singing carols and all the stuff people on TV did. Up to now, however, Christmas had been the day she was twice forgotten. Probably because everyone here was so nice, they would have something for her. But she knew better than to expect a lot. Except for Daddy, she had only met most of these people within the last five days. Even Daddy did not know her very well.

So, she was not exactly tingling at the thought of Christmas. She nodded anyway, of course. There was no way she could explain not being on the edge of her seat, and she was fairly certain even with her explanation she would come across as either an attention hog or a total Scrooge.

Wanda said, “Pietro and I have not had a Christmas with other people in some time. It feels a little strange, you know?”

Stevie nodded again, now slightly unsure if she had wanted anyone to pay her attention. Over by the fire, Sam had knelt down to arrange kindling. Since two people were not required, Steve moved over by Stevie. He gave her a really nice smile; movie star quality. Well, was it very weird that she thought her dad was really handsome, if she thought the same thing about Daddy? Probably it was.

There was a distant thud, and then the lights abruptly went out. It went dark so quickly, she lost her breath in an audible gasp. Before she really thought about it, she had climbed right up into Steve's arms.

“Whoa!” Steve sounded baffled. “You're going to hurt yourself, Stephanie.”

A warning like that was far too late. The sharp pull on the skin of her belly was not as important as not being. . . down there. With her arms around his neck, she pushed her face into his shoulder to blot out her awareness of the darkness. He put his own arms around her waist to keep her from falling.

“You're okay,” he said. “You're okay, I promise.”

She was crying again, like a baby. But if he was here than she was okay. This was not the terrible darkness of that room in the basement. If he was still here, she was not a bad girl. If he was still here, she was safe.

“Stephanie,” he started, but Wanda interrupted him with a soft warning,

“She's terrified.”

“Bucky said she was- Bucky! I'll go-” Stevie tightened her grip on him, and he stopped. “Okay, we can go together to find him.”

“Find who?” said a voice out of the darkness. “Also, it's dark in here.”

“Stating the obvious is Barton's job, Tony,” said another woman, probably Natasha.

“What I'm saying is, it's so damn dark-”

“Language, Tony,” Steve reprimanded.

“What are you, my mother? You can take that suggestion and-”

“Little ears, Tony!”

“Why does that- oh. Right. Anyone else feeling their style cramp? Mine is definitely cramped.”

“Did you have a reason to come in here and complain, or are you just complaining?” Steve asked, shifting his grip to hold Stevie a little closer. “I was going to find Bucky.”

“Well, I was going to ask if anyone had checked to see what caused the power outage, but I can tell I'm not appreciated here.”

“Do not be so childish. Stephanie is being much more mature than you,” noted Wanda.

“Wines mature. People, on the other hand-”

Clint cut in, “Nobody has looked yet, but with this wind, I wouldn't be surprised if a line has been brought down. Get your suit and let's go find out.”

“Was that a sensible suggestion? Who are you, and what have you done with Barton?”

Pointedly ignoring Stark's question, Clint told Steve, “Here's a flashlight, batteries are good. Do you know where your friend is?”

“He should be-”

“Over here,” Daddy said, and Stevie could not help twisting around to look.

Behind them, Natasha marshaled everyone else into helpful groups. Sam went back to lighting the fire. Stark and Barton headed outside to inspect the lines. While Natasha and Pietro finished preparing lunch, Wanda was sent to find the rest of the Avengers. And Daddy sat down on the couch. He took her from Steve and eased Stephanie into his arms, tucking her in snugly beside him, with the arm of the couch at her back.

“Cuddle in,” he instructed gently. “You're freezing again.”

Flustered, Steve reached down to gather up the blankets Stevie had jumped out of to climb him like a tree. She tried to burrow into Daddy's side, but unlike Steve, he was willing to hold her back. With his metal hand restraining her, he used the other to brush her hair back out of her eyes.

“You're safe, Steffy.”

With Steve's clumsy assistance, Daddy wrapped her in the various covers until she was more trapped than anything else. He fed her the sandwich Pietro brought with a flourish, and made certain she swallowed the pills Steve handed over. This was probably exactly how he had handled her as a baby, but it felt good to let him be the boss.

Once he was satisfied that she was finally warming up, Daddy eased her into his lap. With her head resting on his shoulder, and her legs across his lap, Stevie was quite willing to give up and go back to sleep yet again. But even as he was stroking her hair, Daddy looked over at Steve, who was sitting somewhat uncomfortably in front of the fire.

“Come here,” he insisted. With that same sheepish look he had been wearing since Daddy took her, Steve lumbered over. Following Daddy's silent directions, he ended up with Stevie's feet in his lap. He looked as embarrassed as Stevie.

Then Daddy began to sing, her lullaby. Stevie had a perfect view of her dad, and he looked gobsmacked for a good minute. As Daddy began the second verse, however, his face softened a little. Although she was unsure what exactly was going on, Stevie could tell the moment he was comfortable again, which he had not exactly been all morning.

He leaned over when Daddy was finished, laying his palm over her forehead. Giving her a warm smile, he told her quietly, “Looks like you're no worse for that scare. I'm sure we'll hear in a minute Stark has gotten the power fixed. He likes to crow.”

“Not likely she'll hear it,” Daddy said, letting her slide down a little more. “She's about to drop off.”

Although she wanted them to think she was not that much of a baby, Stevie yawned in spite of herself. Daddy smiled knowingly. Given that she was not going to win, Stevie sighed and snuggled in. He pulled the soft blanket up to tuck it in over her shoulders. Then he said softly to Steve,

“I think she's going to need a little more help.”

“Oh?”

“Sing her something.”

For a moment it looked like he would protest, but then Steve glanced down at Stevie. She tried not to blush, but she was terribly curious now. After a long sigh, Steve told Daddy,

“You know I haven't got much of a voice.”

Daddy smirked. “Yeah, that's why Father Murphy begged your ma to let you into our church choir. You think I don't remember that? A holy man down on his knees for someone other than God? Your mom was quite a woman. Quit stalling.”

“All right, all right.” Steve ran a hand through his hair. The twins, sitting on the carpet exchanged a glance with Sam. Far too casually, Pietro suggested,

“Perhaps we will help Natasha with the dishes, sister.”

“Yes, that would be good,” agreed Wanda.

Sam, on the other hand, merely shrugged and turned back to the fire. Obviously, as a friend, he was not about to move away from the fire just to make Steve feel more comfortable. Briefly, Steve shot him a frown, but then he sat forward to sing to Stevie. Embarrassed, she tucked her head in closer to Daddy's chest.

“Bright morning stars are rising,” Steve sang softly. “Bright morning stars are rising. Bright morning stars are rising. Day is a-breaking, in my soul.”

Daddy had been right; Steve had a very nice voice. He made the lullaby much more melodic than she remembered Mommy singing it. Tucked in warm and snug, Stevie felt her eyelids drooping again.

“Oh, where are our dear fathers? Oh, where are our dear fathers? They are down in the valley a-praying. Day is a-breaking in my soul.”

Where had he learned Mommy's lullaby? But Stevie was too cozy to think very hard about it. Between Dad singing sweetly, the warmth of the fire, and Daddy stroking her hair, she really stood no chance at all. She yawned one last time, eyes tightly closed, and drifted off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Steve sings is a lullaby from the Appalachian region of the United States. One version can be heard here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmHhWWKEiAs Some sources suggest that "bright morning stars" may be code for angels.


	24. Snow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To see Stevie's Christmas outfit, go to http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c320/Shagamikun/250Chibis/Alexmasstevie_zpsnkbu1dxs.png to view Tiny Chibis adorable chibi of Xmas Stevie. :)

Steve was pretty sure he had never been more anxious in his life, even when he had had much better reasons to be nervous. Today was a very important day, of course, but not precisely for himself. Fortunately, there was a lot to be done which could help with his excessive energy and would probably not involve him breaking anything. Therefore, he had washed the dishes, set the table, split more firewood, brought the firewood in, and was now carefully stacking it.

Thoughtful, he had to guess Stephanie was probably the only kid in the world sleeping in this morning. She could not help it, not with the medication she was taking. According to Natasha, at least. Everyone was taking the delay fairly well, aside from Tony's usual dramatics. Then again, if he was not dramatic, they would all presume he was horribly ill.

Steve looked over from the woodpile at the tree. The internet was quite the useful place, if a fellow knew how to avoid all the. . . unsavory parts. The glitter ornaments looked very festive without being too tacky, and every Avenger had made four. Stephanie had been able to carefully make two with red, silver, and blue, which were, Steve proudly noted, very attractive. Pepper and Maria Hill had been invited to make some as well, but both bowed out, citing time constraints. The more likely reason was that they did not want to encroach on Avenger territory, so Steve was holding out hope that after the actual day, he could entice them into making the ornaments to put on the tree next year. Bucky had not made any, either, having made his escape while Steve was helping Stephanie. Clearly Steve would need to be more clever next time.

“Still keeping busy?” Sam asked, looking into the entry. “You're one hell of a glutton for punishment.”

“I don't want to wake her too early.”

“Hell, Steve, it's her birthday. And Christmas. I don't think there is such a thing as 'too early' under these circumstances. Besides, it's gone nine, and Nat says if you don't wake her, the goose you're so enamored of will not go in the oven.”

Sighing, Steve reluctantly agreed. “All right. Let me make sure Bucky is up for this. If he isn't, we can do it all after Christmas dinner.”

“He better be,” Sam muttered. “Because that is cruel and unusual punishment right there.”

When Steve found him, Bucky was spaced out in his room, the kitten determinedly chewing on his metal fingers. Like Steve, she did not know a losing battle when she saw one. He eased her away from the enemy and deposited her in front of her food. Her little bottom wobbled as she eagerly attacked this new foe, chewing with utmost satisfaction.

“Hey,” Steve said quietly to Bucky. “Are you gonna join us, Buck? I don't want Stephanie to miss out on having you there.”

“Yeah,” Bucky answered, but vaguely.

Steve slid a hand up his right arm, stopping just below the shoulder. “What is it?”

“She might not be happy,” Bucky said after a long pause.

“With the kitten?”

“With all of it.” Bucky sighed. “She's lost everything, Steve. We can't expect her to turn around just for one day.”

“No, we can't expect it. But we can hope, Bucky. She needs us to keep hoping, doesn't she? Just like your mom told us when your dad lost his job at the boot factory. Yeah, I know he got another job right away, but those were a hard couple of days, right?”

Bucky's gaze became distant, and for a moment Steve feared that he had stumbled into a memory his friend had lost, but then Bucky replied, “Yeah. It was tough. I remember my mother looking for work too, like she could have gotten away with it when Becky was so young.”

“Your mom was made of iron,” Steve reminded his friend with a smile. “She would have made it work.”

“Sure felt like it when she had me turned over her knee.”

“So, are you ready for this? Nat is threatening not to let us cook our goose.”

Bucky gave a thin smile. “It's not Christmas without a goose.”

“Right.” Steve looked at the kitten chewing the sole of his shoe, and asked, “Do you want to wake her?”

“I'll do it. Ya lily-livered punk.”

“Thanks, jerk.”

They shared a grin. Then Bucky stood up. He scooped the kitten from the floor and put her in Steve's lap. She immediately attempted to maul his hands. For him, at least, she was a little handful. To save himself, Steve slipped her into the carrier they had bought. It would not be for very long, and she ought to settle down before meeting Stephanie.

“What are you doing, Buck?” Bucky had picked up one of the presents in the corner and was headed for the door.

“We have to start Christmas off right,” he told Steve. “No sense in her being under-dressed for the occasion.”

He had a point, although Steve had heard that plenty of kids still wore their pajamas for this, and Natasha had given her a very cute little nightgown. And- Steve glanced over to confirm- that was one of his presents to Stephanie. He supposed Bucky approved, then.

While Bucky went in to gently wake and dress Stephanie, Steve gathered up the packages and headed out to put them under the tree. There had not been much sense in putting them there ahead of time, give how many there were. No one would have been able to sit in front of the fire, or possibly even get in front of the couch. Mostly because Tony Stark, billionaire, liked to buy everyone a lot of small presents. Unless, as Natasha had taught Steve, he was expressly asked for a larger gift.

It seemed Sam had passed along the memo. Pepper was sitting at the base of the tree, shuffling presents around into various piles. Pietro and Wanda had wrangled Stark into the kitchen, making drinks for everyone, to keep him from interfering. Between then, Natasha, Banner and Clint managed to bring in chairs and cushions enough for everyone. Over by the fire, Sam and Rhodes were adding a nice swag to the mantel, along with stockings for everyone.

By the time Bucky brought Stephanie in, only the couch was clear. That was fine by Steve. They could cuddle in close, keeping both Bucky and Stephanie from feeling too surrounded.

Stephanie looked beyond adorable. Her Christmas dress was brilliant red velvet with a wide white sash tied to a bow over her left side. And somewhere Bucky had found a wide, white ribbon to match as a hairband. The faux fur on the cuffs and hem made it look even cozier. Settled between himself and Bucky, she kicked her little feet. Those red shoes with fabric roses just made her all the cuter.

“I think somebody's ready to go,” Stark hinted.

“You?” asked Pepper with a grin.

“Obviously.”

“All right, presents or stockings first?” Rhodes questioned.

The near unanimous decision was for the presents. From her position at the foot of the tree, Pepper began distributing them, one per person. Stephanie took hers with a little confusion, looking up at Bucky in obvious inquiry.

“Read the tag, Steffy,” he instructed, rubbing her back with his free hand.

Steve had peeked when he was passing it over, so he knew it was from Clint. She turned shy again, hiding her face in Bucky's side. Chuckling, he suggested,

“Why don't you open it before you hide?”

And that was, more or less, how it went through most of the presents. Stephanie would become embarrassed and shyer than ever, Bucky would coax her through, and Steve was a quiet lump. Eventually she got to Bucky's present and this time she actually hid in Steve's side. He did his best not to be too excited by the gesture of trust. Instead, he helped her open the packaging. Her eyes grew wide as she lifted out the CDs of Christmas music.

“Aha. I knew we were missing a level of festivity,” Stark announced. “How about we pop one in, kiddo?”

Little Stephanie's cheeks grew quite rosy, but she nodded. As Stark plucked one out of a case, she put her head against Bucky's arm. He smiled and pulled her in for a one-handed hug. As she returned the embrace, Steve noted that she was running out of steam. Perhaps the big present should wait until after the goose.

However, when the presents under the tree were gone, Steve could tell by the knowing smirks that nobody else was thinking that way. Before Stark could steal the show, Steve decided to carry on. He took her little hand and said quietly,

“Now, it is Christmas, but it's also a very special day for you, isn't it?” He smiled at her blush. “We didn't want to forget your birthday, Stephanie.”

Those big blue eyes reminded him so much of Bucky, although he had only rarely succeeded in surprising his best pal. Now he gave the floor over to Stark, letting him play Santa while Steve slid away to get the kitten. He already knew Stark was giving her a phone, which made him sigh. Come the start of school, she would need it, but ten still seemed a little too young. He had been assured that her minutes could be limited, and her calls and texts tracked, for now.

The kitten was awake and playing with a fluffy sock. Carefully, Steve slipped a hand around her middle and lifted her out. With an inquisitive mew, she turned her attention to his palm, licking it curiously. He cuddled her to his chest, and she dug her little claws into his black sweater.

“All right, you. Time to meet your new mommy. Be good for her, okay?”

It was not hard to sneak up on Stephanie. At the moment, she was engrossed with the new coloring books Pietro and Wanda had picked up. To be honest, Steve thought they were pretty amazing too. Once her hands were cleared, he gently leaned over her and put the kitten in her lap.

At first there was total silence. Then the tiny kitten decided to climb up to put her paws on Stevie's chest. As she sniffed curiously, Stevie finally put her hands on the fluff ball.

“Hi kitty,” she said softly, and Steve nearly cried. In the last ten days she had said perhaps twenty words, if that. It had not occurred to him that the kitten might help with that problem, but if she did. . .

Bucky leaned over and whispered something in Stevie's ear, until she turned to look at Steve. Well, now his secret was out. He had been happy to let her think it was Bucky's idea, but of course Bucky tattled on him. When she beckoned, he leaned over again, so she could whisper in his ear.

Instead, she completely floored him by kissing his cheek. Between the pair of them, they could probably light the whole room with their blushes. Somebody was laughing at him, but his mother had raised him to respond in kind. Therefore Steve returned the kiss very lightly.

“Now that is a keeper,” Pepper said cheerfully. “Speaking of. . . don't you have something to give Steve, Tony?”

“Well, it's more for the three of you,” Stark hedged, but the pressure was on and he was not about to lose his moment. “So, Jillian left you some important stuff in that drive you never look at. I dug through it, after Hill took what she needed, and then I went to the printer, and a framer, and I had to stand in line with a very picky grandmother all the while. You're lucky I didn't just wait until next year.”

He brandished a picture frame, and a leather embossed book. “But I slaved away on your behalf, because I knew you'd never get around to that drive again. I hope this is old-fashioned enough for you.”

The picture was what Steve looked at first. While Bucky took the book, Steve had his breath taken away. In the photo, Bucky was holding a wee baby, so small her eyes were not open. His expression was unmistakable. Tenderness and adoration were written in the curve of his lips, and the way his fingers were lightly running over her tiny cheek.

“Is that me?” Stephanie asked him.

“I think so,” he replied. “You were a beautiful baby.”

“That you were,” Bucky agreed. “Meanwhile, look at this bozo.”

The book had been a photo album. There was an old shot of him and Bucky as younger boys, the one Mr. Silbersack had taken with his brownie camera. Certainly they looked like a prize pair of idiots, grinning like fools while sporting day old black eyes. Stephanie giggled, and Steve found himself smiling.

There was an old school photo he just remembered being lined up for, Bucky's enlistment portrait, and then Steve stumbled across a Barnes family picture. Bucky, his mother, his father, his older sister- Steve gasped. He had forgotten. Bucky's elder sister, who had died of measles after catching it from Bucky.

Bucky directed Stephanie's attention to the group shot. “That's your namesake, Steffy.”

“She is?” both Steve and Stephanie asked in surprise.

“Stephanie Ida Barnes, my big sister. She was our family angel, just like you are our angel now.” He ruffled her hair slightly. “She was as special to me as you are.”

“Good grief,” Steve ejaculated. “You always called her Iddy. I had no idea.”

Bucky chuckled. “That was my dad's fault. How else did I become Bucky?”

That actually made sense. Of course, Steve had only known Bucky since Steve had been about four years old and first tried to keep up with the big boys. And he had not met Iddy until he was six years old, because she went straight home every day to help her mother with the babies. Once he was in school, he met her as Bucky walked him home. She had been four years older than Bucky, if he remembered correctly.

The measles had struck suddenly, taking the whole building by surprise. No one ever knew for sure who had started the epidemic, but it went through the children like a dust storm in the Midwest. Becca had caught it first of the Barnes children, at four whole years old. Bucky had climbed into bed with her after hearing the doctor say the measles might take her sight if she did not stop crying. He had collapsed in the middle of stickball three days later, and Iddy quickly took to tending him, giving up her spot as a newsie to allow her mother time to rest between tending the sick. A week later Iddy, Mrs. Foster and her unborn baby, and two of the Milano tots were buried in the churchyard. By the end of that month, half the small kids in the building had died and two adults went blind. Steve did not catch it at that time.

Naming Stephanie after his elder sister was a lot more tender than giving their little girl a thinly disguised version of Steve's name. Steve looked over and watched Bucky petting Stephanie as he showed her more pictures. There was a lot of love in his friend. If General Ross wanted a piece of his friend as Talbot had warned, Steve had surefire ammunition against that.

“Okay, let's tidy up and put that goose in the oven,” Pepper said. “I'm actually kind of excited to try it.”

“That means drinks,” Stark crowed.

“After the cleaning,” Natasha crushed him.

Steve got to his feet and helped gather up Stephanie's loot. With the kitten lying on her belly, she was a bit tied up. And there was quite a bit of plunder for her: new boots, decorations for her room, art supplies, some more clothes, card games, bath supplies, and the phone. He put them in the plastic laundry basket for her provided by Pepper, who was always one to think ahead. That would keep it all together and make it easier for her to sort out for herself.

His own presents were even more quickly tidied up: sweaters, a new dress suit, books, and his own art supplies. When he glanced over at Bucky, he was somewhat pleased to note that his friend had been noticed as much as Steve, including a suit of his own. He had always looked sharp in black, and Steve recalled with guilty pleasure a time or two when he'd helped Bucky out of them. Whether or not Bucky would want that now. . . they had not talked about it. Surely Bucky was too busy putting the pieces of his mind back together.

“Eggnog for the little lady,” Stark offered,and Stephanie took the cup with both hands. “What are you going to call your pestilence?”

As sharp as her father, Stephanie replied, “Star.”

Stark's eyes twinkled. “Because she's a show-stealer?”

Stephanie nodded solemnly before taking a big drink of her eggnog. Realizing he was grinning like a loon, Steve gathered up the laundry basket and made himself head down to her room. Looking at how stuffed it was, he knew she had definitely endeared herself to everyone. She was cute, smart, a little sassy, and eager to be of help. And that was just what they had found out in ten days. Who knew what other great qualities she was hiding? Steve was definitely excited to find out. She was, after all, their little angel.


	25. Latent Heat

At last, Christmas was winding down. He had done his best to be available the whole time, or at least present. Sweet little Steffy had done most of that work for him. It was very nice to be needed and wanted at the same time, by the same person. And she was a little sweetheart, giving him half of her Christmas candy. She knew he had a sweet tooth.

However, in his tallying of the surprising amount of presents with his name on the tag, he had not failed to note the lack of a gift from a certain someone. Whether it was punishment for opting out of every group activity he possibly could, or Steve had spent his budget on their baby, he could not say. He had tried to be reasonable about it, but. . . it hurt. How could Steve forget him?

“Hey, Buck,” Steve said, poking his head in the door. “Stephanie's asleep?”

“Yeah.”

He grinned, like he was keeping a secret. “Oh. Well, then I guess I'll have you come with me.”

“What did you do?”

“Now that is a familiar question,” Steve deflected. “Come on, Bucky. I need a second opinion, and yours matters most.”

How the hell Steve had wrangled him into this was mitigated slightly by the fact that he had also convinced Rhodes to fly them up to New York, and someone to give him the keys to a place. On Christmas. A damn smooth talker to get that out of an apparent stranger. What kind of place it was, he could not say, but he was starting to have terrible suspicions as they climbed the stairs up six flights. They ratcheted to new heights when Steve asked him to close his eyes.

“No.”

“All right,” Steve said, although he deflated a little. “Then you'll just have to be surprised the moment I open the door.”

“What did you do?” he demanded again.

“We've got two hours to look around,” Steve answered cheerfully. “I really need you to tell me if I'm crazy. No one else does it quite so well.”

“You are.”

All he received in reply was a broad grin. Then he pushed open the door, and made a stupidly grand gesture with his arm. God damn him for being so cute after all these years. The way every little thing raised just a hint of blush on his cheeks, and that nervous habit of biting very lightly on his bottom lip- there was a good reason Bucky had fallen for him, and stayed fallen.

Inside, the floor was bare boards. Aside from the walls, lights, windows and appliances, it was empty. Now he had a much better idea of what Steve was up to.

“So?” Steve asked after a moment. “It looks nice, doesn't it?”

Rather than respond, he kept looking around. He could see nearly all of the main areas from here: living area, dining room, kitchen, and the hallway that must lead to the bedrooms and bathroom. That was dangerous. And he hated the wood floors. Even Steve's soft sole shoes were kicking up a lot of noise. Reflective surfaces were everywhere, making it look dazzling and overdone. In his mind, this place was a deathtrap.

Because he was as excitable as a puppy, Steve took his hand and pulled him into the kitchen. “Look at all this space, Buck! Ma would have strangled a politician to have this much room to cook.”

“Your ma would strangle a politician for free,” Bucky grumbled, looking at all the bright, too-shiny surfaces.

“And I found a nice, big table with four leaves, so when there's company there can be room to eat, but it can be compressed up for the rest of the day. Oh, and the oven and range? Natural gas for the best cooking.”

“You're a terrible cook. All you can make is chicken soup.”

“But you love my chicken soup!” Steve protested.

Damn him. “I know.”

“Besides, I thought you might like to cook.” And he looked down, obviously a little hurt.

God damn him. “As if I'd let you do it.”

“Come on, there's more back here.”

Sighing, he went along. Nothing short of a bomb could slow down Captain Idiot when he got a wild hair. Besides, it sure was catching. He was honestly impressed by the small bathroom that was just off the front door, given that there were somehow, Steve revealed, three in this apartment.

Then he was dragged down the hallway, and into a quite spacious bedroom. All wood floor, unfortunately. However, it had a good sized window, and an amazing walk-in closet. As Steve closed that sliding door, he suggested,

“I thought this would be a good room for Stephanie. Her bed could go on that wall, and a desk for her schoolwork, and a cozy chair by the window for reading. Oh, and she can have the bathroom across the way to herself. I mean, she shouldn't have to share with us, you know?”

He pulled Bucky back out into the hallway and took him into the next room, back from the apparent second bathroom. “I thought you might like this room.”

Startled, he looked at Steve. “What?”

“Well, I mean, we've shared since we were kids, so I thought. . . you might like your own space.”

He folded his arms. “Steven Grant Rogers, you think I don't want to share a bed with you? Who the hell else will keep your socks off the floor?”

“That was-”

“And,” he ground on, “You need a studio, don't you? Look at that window. That's not a bedroom window. You're not going to move me out of your room at the expense of the chance for you to catch up your art, or the chance for Steffy to sit in here with you. She loves to paint.”

“Really?”

“You ought to know that already. I know you have her diary in your back pocket.”

Steve looked incredibly guilty. “I meant to give it back, but she was out cold. I only took it because I hoped there would be a clue in it.”

“And was there?” he asked, arms still crossed.

“Well, yeah.” He took it out, flipped through the pages, and then held it out to him. “She loves you, Bucky.”

She had done several studies of him. Of course, she needed a lot of practice, but he would be damned if she did not draw exactly like Steve. But obviously Steve had been a better dad than he was, because all he had noticed was her sketches of Bucky. So, in front of his favorite moron, he turned back to the front of the diary and exposed something much more obvious.

“Oh,” Steve said after twenty pages or so.

“Exactly,” he agreed, feeling smug.

Turning red around the ears, Steve muttered, “Nat said she liked Captain America.”

“Imagine how embarrassed she is,” he suggested. “She calls herself Stevie, you know.”

“Really?” and the idiot looked pleased as punch.

“Yes.”

Steve rubbed the back of his head. “Well, I guess she can be Stevie-girl if she likes it. I mean, it's her name and all.”

He caught himself rolling his eyes. Good grief, he had not done that in. . . he could not remember when. It was damn good to feel home, at last. However. . .

“If we are going to live here, we have change a lot of things.”

Steve spread his arms open. “Tell me.”

For twenty minutes they sat in the studio as they agreed on changes. Carpets were just the start, and Steve assured him Stark would install excellent security. As it turned out, this was another Stark-owned building anyway. Collecting buildings was a hobby if his. Between the tour and the discussion, Bucky noticed they still had an hour left. And that gave him an idea.

“So, I suppose this is my Christmas present?”

“Of course, Buck. I want us to have a home, but I know you need it. I want you to think about being home, to know you're safe. . . and loved. 'Cause, I love you Bucky. You deserve all I can give.”

He leaned forward, much closer to Steve than he had been in a long time. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Steve grinned, and Bucky closed that gap in a heartbeat. He might have startled Steve, but his friend was into it immediately. They quickly went from soft, tender kisses to twining tongues while their hands started roaming. Bucky got a good grip on Steve's ass, which thankfully had stayed deliciously plump even after the serum.

By the time he was lifting Steve's shirt over his head, Steve had gotten that beautiful glazed look in his eyes. His lips were swollen with heated kisses, and his blush had definitely moved down his chest. Therefore, it was a surprise when Steve stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Bucky, you don't have to. . .”

“What if I want to?” he challenged. “What if I would love to suck your dick, take it in down my throat and drink your cum?”

Steve stared, and then swallowed. “Then, uh, then I guess I'd be okay with that.”

A sensible response. He continued on that theme by removing his pants and underwear. Bucky had to grin at how enthusiastic Steve was. He always had been a bit of a slut, for all his protestations about decency. And all that was fine by him. Nothing was sexier than an eager partner.

Of course, Steve had always been unbelievably sexy. His skin was so soft, and the way he looked up at Bucky with unimaginable trust never failed to get Bucky hard. Those baby blues had always made him hold his breath, even before he and Steve had first tumbled into bed together.

Steve wanted to undress him too. And when he took an item off, he would kiss the exposed skin tenderly, making sure to catch Bucky's eye as he did so. It felt nice to be spoiled in this way. How long had it been? Concentration, however, was lost the moment Steve glanced at him with that mischievous sparkle, and wrapped a hand around his dick.

“I've missed you, Buck. Missed you so much.”

“Fuck, Steve. If I knew this was what it took to get you motivated, I woulda called you high-maintenance ages ago.”

“Shut up, jerk.”

Bucky had to laugh. Maybe Steve had not changed after all. He pushed him down, as gentle as he could be. The one thing he knew was different now was that he could tease the hell out of Steve and not worry about working him over too hard. Tonight was promised to be very nice indeed.

Steve probably felt like he was as hard as a rock, given the way his cock was dripping precum all over the place. Maybe he had not had anyone to look after him. Well, Bucky had always enjoyed taking care of this long, thick piece of meat for Steve. Looking up to catch his lover's eye, Bucky went down on Steve in a heartbeat. There was that throaty groan he adored.

“Jesus, Buck,” he gasped out.

Bucky slid back up to the tip, flicking his tongue out to lick that little divot of flesh. “Now don't go taking the Lord's name in vain. Especially not right now. This is nothing to do with him- just you and me.”

To make sure Steve was concentrating on the right things, Bucky went back to work on his dick. He had long ago figured out exactly what drove Steve to breathless little pleas, and what made his hips jerk upward uncontrollably. For starters, he was going to swallow Steve to the base. That accomplished, and hearing that little whine, Bucky put his fingers in Steve's mouth. Right away, he could feel the whirl of Steve's hot tongue.

Slowly, he slid back to the top, letting Steve's dick pop from his mouth. A quick gasp, and then Bucky was taking him back in. As he went down again, he made sure to get Steve nice and wet. If he was going to drive him really crazy, Bucky would need the lubrication. As soon as he felt it was good enough, he began to bob his head back and forth, taking him a little deeper each time. Now Steve was really sucking on his fingers, and Bucky could see his abdomen flex as his lover tried hard not to jerk up his hips. Bucky was not about to give him a choice.

Freeing his hand from Steve's mouth, Bucky took his delightfully wet fingers and ran them along the crack of Steve's ass. Somebody, he noticed, had been doing some personal grooming. Who did he have to thank for that?

At the moment, however, this was all about Steve. On his next journey down Steve's dick, Bucky waited until he had just hit the point where Steve was in his throat, and then popped a finger inside. The little jump, breathy moan and uncontrolled flex of his hips was enough to make Bucky grin around his favorite dick.

“Oh shit! Fuck. I'm sorry, Bucky.”

“Shut up,” Bucky hummed cheerfully. “You know I love it when you're rough with me.”

“I don't want to hurt you,” he mumbled.

Annoyed, Bucky frowned at him. “Believe me, Steve you can't do that. And time's a-wasting, you know.”

With that, he took Steve back into his mouth. A strained gasp told him Steve had not lost interest. This time Bucky moved to hurry things along on his own. He added a finger to his own mouth as he sucked on Steve's dick. While Steve moaned loudly, he slid his index finger up and down along his mouthful, gathering up spit and tracing veins.

He did not spend much time lingering, for all he knew that he could. His first chance in seventy-five years to fuck with Steve? Waiting was not going to happen.

As he eased his forefinger back into Steve's asshole, his lover began to beg, “Please Buck, please!”

“Please what, darling?” Bucky purred.

“Want you. Want you so bad.”

Knowing that Steve was reaching that point where he was going to get mostly incoherent, a place Bucky had not frequently been able to safely get him to, Bucky eased up his intrusion. He had to make certain anything Steve agreed to was with a rational mind. After all, Steve was easily persuaded, especially when it came to Bucky. Whether or not Carter had gotten the same reaction, he could not say. But it was imperative that Bucky make sure Steve really was okay and not just saying it to get his in.

“Tell me what you want, darling,” Bucky instructed.

“I want you to fuck me, Bucky. Please.”

“I can do that, darling,” Bucky agreed, trying to keep himself from jumping for the lube in his pants pocket. “But you're going to do something for me.”

“Anything,” Steve immediately replied. Bucky ran his fingers over Steve's supple lips.

“We're going to use a safe word. It's a word you'll say to me if you're uncomfortable, or it's too much. And I'm going to ask you to say it for me a couple times, to check in.”

This technique he had learned from Jillian, actually. She had discovered his personal love of rough play and implemented the system to help them both. And it had made playing the more dangerous sort of bedroom game less tense. However, he was not going to tell Steve that Jillian had been the one to start the trend, because Steve could be incredibly jealous. Incredibly.

“What word?” Steve asked, looking a bit dubious.

Bucky smiled. “How about 'Brooklyn,' darling?”

He enjoyed the way Steve's eyes lit up as he nodded. Now Bucky could reach for the lube. But he was going to savor this moment, and its reversal of roles. So he passed the tube over to Steve and directed,

“Let's see how much of a show you can put on, Cap. Those months on stage dancing for the people must have taught you a thing or two.”

“I wasn't a showgirl,” Steve protested.

“Mmm, maybe there's a reason? Come on, choir boy. Entice me.”

He leaned back on one elbow, and wrapped a hand around his dick. Steve gulped. But he always was game for a challenge, unless it involved leaving a score unsettled. For the moment, that was goading him into doing precisely what Bucky had always wanted to see.

Of course, he was a little clumsy as he tried to work himself up. To Bucky, though, it was plenty good enough to watch Mr. Patriotism with a finger up his ass, flexing his hips and moaning like a cheap fuck. He felt a little smug in the knowledge that he could make Steve like this, so hungry for his dick that he would do anything Bucky asked.

He had to slow him down a little, though, when he went for three at once. “Take your time, baby doll. I'm going to ravish you, but there's no need to rush it.”

“You are?” Steve asked, face all flushed and glowing with sweat.

“Oh yeah,” he grinned. “I'm going to push you down and fill you so full of my dick that you're going to scream for me. And then you're going to ride me just like you always had me riding you. I'm going to make you work for my cum, darling.”

Steve liked the dirty talk, if that extra little roll of his hips was any indication. But then, they had never really been able to get loud before. Someone was always set to catch them. Having this place to themselves, in this age, meant Bucky would work Steve over to the point of crying out for him. And that was a hell of a thought.

“Here. Let me give you something else to work on, so you don't get so antsy.”

Bucky fed Steve his cock, the one thing he had not really let Steve do to any great extent. When Steve was still that gorgeous little scarecrow, he had had to stay in control to keep him from getting hurt. It was why, on occasion, he had still gone out to pick up a pretty dame. Until recently, there had been danger, and then habit, standing in the way of letting go and taking Steve like the little strumpet he was. Fortunately, he was more himself than he had been in decades, but also just enough the other man to get a little greedy.

As much as he was enjoying it, he knew he needed to check in. This was a lot more stimulation than his lover was used to, two fingers working his asshole while he was enthusiastically sucking the head of Bucky's dick. He made Steve come up and asked him for the safe word.

“Brooklyn,” gasped out Steve, and Bucky nodded his approval.

“That's beautiful, baby doll,” he praised as Steve took him eagerly back into his mouth. “You look so good like that.”

He took a gentle grip on Steve's hair, a little tug here and there to guide him along. Unlike Bucky, Steve was not into rough play. But that had been more or less forbidden territory. So tonight he was going to push those limits. He started by pulling a little harder, making Steve stay down a little longer. If that groan around his dick was any indication, Steve was definitely into it.

When he suspected Steve was good and ready, he pulled him up, enjoying the way Steve ended up rubbing dicks with him, his hips making frenetic jerks. Bringing his face in close, Bucky watched his lover becoming a wreck in fascination. He had never really seen Steve this way, had he? Softly, he ran his fingers over Steve's cheek, and then paused when he realized he was using his metal hand. Steve, though, clearly did not care and sucked one of the digits into his mouth. God damn, that was hot.

“Are you ready for me, darling?”

“Yes, yes,” Steve panted. “Please, Buck. I need you.”

“Don't I just know it,” he murmured. “Give me the lube now.”

Dropping a light kiss on Steve's delectable lips, he took the tube. Steve probably thought he was going to lube himself up, but Bucky was no fool. Turning him over, he got a good look at Steve's asshole. What he had noticed earlier was completely true: Steve was bare as a baby around his ass. He never would have expected that! Time to call him out on it.

“Now what have we here? Cap, you're shaved like a porn star. What kind of dirty things have you being getting up to without me?”

It took him a moment, but eventually Steve replied breathlessly, “I did it for you. I thought. . . well. . .”

“All this for me?” Bucky asked, surprised. Then he took stock and purred, “I always did like Christmas with you, baby doll.”

Carefully, he prodded Steve's asshole. The groan that followed was instant and long. Steve could not stand much more teasing. Easing in one finger, and then a second, Bucky checked him. If he was still too tight, Bucky would be plenty happy to suck him off while Steve reciprocated. However, with a little patience, he was able to work up to three while Steve ground his dick into Bucky's thigh and mindlessly pleaded for the fuck he wanted.

“All right, darling. Once more for me. What's the safe word?”

“Brooklyn, Bucky. It's Brooklyn. Please, please. I want you to fuck me.”

“Shh, now. Of course I'm going to fuck you. Didn't I always tell you, you're my best guy? That will never change, Steve.”

A goodly dollop of lube spread over his cock and worked into Steve's ass meant he was ready too. Naturally, he went a little slower than Steve wanted, checking in as he popped through the ring of Steve's asshole, and then bottomed out. But once he was certain, he leaned back and pulled Steve into his lap. He spent a long moment nipping at Steve's neck, ear, and shoulder.

“Now, darling, I want to watch you ride my dick. Just like I always did for you.”

“Oh- God, Bucky,” whined Steve as he tried to move his hips to comply. This was what they called a teachable moment.

“Nice and slow, Steve. Lift up. Yeah, just like that. C'mon back down now.”

“Buck, Buck,” Steve moaned, getting into a steady rhythm.

“That's it. Good boy. So good, baby doll.” Using his metal arm to keep himself propped up, he lifted his own hips to give Steve that little edge. That left his other arm free to move to Steve's front, where he could run his fingers over Steve's hard nipples.

God damn, but Steve felt like perfection. Even a damn sight bigger than he had once been, there was something about his body that always felt like home to Bucky. Skin still deliciously soft, as underneath hard muscles tensed and rolled. He no longer smelled of Ivory soap or Palmolive shaving cream, but his natural scent had not changed. It was like coming home again.

“Ooo, yeah. Just like that, darling,” Bucky cooed when Steve slid down to the base of his dick and started rocking his hips.

All he received in reply was a high-pitched whine. It was time to check in again. Exciting and incredible as it was, Bucky knew he had to adjust the pace. Especially if Steve was checked out.

“Can you give me that safe word, baby doll?” he asked, holding Steve steady.

“Brook-” Steve paused to gather himself and then said, “Brooklyn. God, Buck, don't make me stop.”

Bucky let his lips glide over Steve's neck. “Hmm?”

“Bucky, please!”

“You know what I remember, Steve? I remember the first time I fucked you. You looked so damn good in that uniform, and even better out of it. And the best look for you? This perfect ass up as I fucked you from behind. Remember that, baby doll? Remember what you asked me?”

“Yes.”

“Let me hear you say that again.”

“Take me like you've always wanted to,” Steve breathed.

“Then get down on all fours for me, darling.”

Bucky took a moment to admire the sight. That was one hell of an ass: round, firm, and ready for a thorough reaming. Another time, he absolutely wanted to find out if Steve enjoyed spanking. Right now, though, it was time to get down to work. Their window was closing, Steve's dick was leaking like mad, and he was not far off himself. Besides, he loved Steve's asshole, so warm and greedy.

“Okay, baby doll, I want to be a little rough. You ready for that? Remember the word?”

“Brooklyn.” Steve looked back at him over his shoulder. “I'll tell you, I promise.”

Bucky grunted as he pushed back inside of him. “And I promise to listen.”

Finally, he could give in a little more and lose himself in a wonderful fast-paced fuck. Hands on Steve's waist, pulling him back to add a little more oomph to his thrusts, he savored the way he could simply relax into the moment, and the rhythm. And, of course, enjoying the view. If only a lot of those conservative hard-asses could see Steve's hard ass taking his cock like a champ. Hearing the way he was calling out would be an education all by itself.

Because he was curious about their new boundaries, Bucky reached up a hand and began easing Steve's head back with a handful of hair in his fist. Steve's response was a gratifying moan and rolling his ass up to give Bucky still better access. So he definitely liked this.

“You like that, darling?”

“Yes, yes, yes! More, Bucky! More!”

“Sure thing.” Bucky set to work, pounding into him harder than ever, but still not as hard as he could. There was something hypnotic about watching Steve take him so easily, the way his asshole stretched and moved as he filled him. When he pulled out a few times, just to tease Steve, it was the best feeling to slide right back in.

Steve had been so good tonight, better than Bucky could have imagined. Better than he had ever been able to dream when he was trapped in darkness. In return, he deserved a little reward. So Bucky took hold of Steve's dick in his right hand. Once upon a time, Steve had done this for him as he rode his dick to orgasm. It had felt just. . . right to have Steve touching him so intimately. 

But Bucky had a lot of experience now, and a few tricks. He moved his hand from base to tip, and at that space let one finger drift along the glans and rubbed the urethra briefly. A few of these teasing strokes and Steve was over the edge. He came with a shout, shooting fast and far the way he always did. They would need a mop in a minute.

Before then, it was nearly Bucky's turn. He was so close, his movements becoming less controlled, and his awareness narrowing in on nothing more than filling Steve up with his cum. It was his turn to stop speaking, and that caught Steve's attention.

“Are you close, Buck? Shoot it in me. Go on, give it to me good. I want it so bad, Bucky. Wanna feel you filling me up just like you promised.”

“Fuck!” he swore, turned on by Steve trying to talk dirty to him. “Fuck, Steve!”

“Do it, Bucky,” he enticed, and fluttered his goddamn lashes like a dirty whore. That about did it.

He honestly thought about pulling out, to coat Steve's back and mark him that way. Still, Steve had a request, when this whole time he had simply done what Bucky wanted. It was only fair. Burying himself so deep that his balls were touching Steve's, he made several little thrusts that got Steve groaning again.

“God, I love you Buck,” Steve whimpered, shocking Bucky. Before he could truly process the idea, he was cumming. As he had been asked, he poured it into Steve's twitching asshole. Together, they moaned and lingered in that moment. It had all been much, much more than he had bargained for.

Steve had one last surprise for Bucky, however. Once he had gingerly eased out, Steve reached back to the trickle of cum leaking out of him, rubbed his filthy fingers in it and then proceeded to lick the cum off his hand.

“Damn, Steve,” Bucky groaned.

“Do you like it?” Steve asked, back to his usual anxious self. “I saw someone do that in a video and I thought. . .”

Pulling him in close, Bucky muttered, “Nobody should let you run around on the internet unsupervised. If you learned that sexy little trick, imagine what else you'd pick up.”

“So you liked it?” Steve looked at him hopefully, and Bucky snorted.

“I don't use the term sexy for anything that ain't.” He ran his fingers along Steve's jawline, and then questioned, “And that other piece you said? You never said that in bed before.”

“This hardly qualifies as a bed.”

“Then I guess I'll be fucking you on the floor more often,” Bucky retorted.

“Little hard on the knees,” Steve rapped back.

“Not yours, nor mine. If you don't want to tell me-”

Steve quickly cut in. “Of course I do, Buck. I want to tell you everyday. I want to tell you and not care who knows it. But you know it isn't safe. Can you even imagine what people would do if they knew about us? What HYDRA would do?”

“Your reputation is-”

“I'm not talking about my damn reputation. I'm talking about them taking you, hurting you, trying to kill you to get to me. And it goes both ways. Why do you think I'm so scared for Stepha- Stevie? You and I can fight our way out, and we both have, but she's a baby. That's why, for now, you and I are going to be a secret from the outside world.”

“And Stevie-girl? You want to hide us from her too?”

Steve grabbed his shoulders. “Never. I want her to know we love each other always. I want her to see it, hear it, and feel it. With everything she has been through, I don't want to set a bad example. She ought to know what real love is, so nobody can dupe her with empty promises. I want her to set her own boundaries and have everything she has always deserved, and I'm not going to let the world hurt her. Not now, not ever. And the same goes for you, Buck. I didn't chase you across the country to lose you again. If somebody wants to pry you away from me, they're gonna need a real good crowbar.”

Nobody did a stirring speech like Steve. He had tried to tell him that once, when Steve asked him if he was following Captain America. There was no Captain America, only that skinny little guy from Brooklyn who could make you feel like punching the world in the gut, and then kicking it in the crown jewels.

“Am I worth that?” Bucky asked, suddenly filled with doubt. How could he be, after all he had done?

Steve looked him dead in the eye. “You always have been, and always will be, Buck.”


	26. Tidal Piling

As the kitten kneaded her tiny claws into his hip, Steve pondered the wisdom of letting Bucky decide if it was all right for Stephanie to sleep in his bed if she had had nightmares. Partly because he was not precisely sure if this was appropriate at her age, but mostly because Star had to come too, and she was not a sleeper. At least, not when she could be stabbing or biting him.

Stephanie turned over again, this time toward him. Hesitantly, he reached out to brush her hair out of her face. It was a little shorter now, thanks to Natasha tidying up the damage done by HYDRA, and she was not able to tuck all of it behind her ears. Steve liked the new look, but then she looked so darn cute anyway. That had to be Bucky.

His main concern at the moment, and which was keeping him up, was that tomorrow she would be going to see both a pediatrician and a psychologist. And she was not talking yet. Well, to Bucky and the kitten, but not to anyone else (much). He did not mind that (much), but Bucky could not come with them in public. Getting her to open up to complete strangers was beyond what Steve could envision, given that he was not sure she had said more than ten words to him yet. But he would have to try, so that she could start healing on the inside.

Star gave one of her trilling mews and climbed down onto Stephanie. As he scooped up the tiny fluff monster, he reminded himself to call his daughter Stevie. Steve and Stevie- it sounded excessively saccharine. If it was what she wanted, however, he could not see a right way to deny her.

Abruptly Stevie came crawling up from sleep. Another nightmare. He would have expected Bucky to wake up with her, but he was out cold. This left it up to Steve. Who had no idea what he was doing. Great.

“It's okay. You're safe,” he said, opting for pretty much all he ever said to her.

To her bewilderment, she grabbed onto him, burying her face in his chest. “No.”

“Um, yes?” he hedged, awkwardly letting his arms wrap around her.

“No.” Now she rubbed her face into his shirt, and he was glad he chose to wear full pajamas. All the same, that tickled!

“Ease up a little, Stevie-girl.”

She froze, and he felt his heart sink. Did she not want him to call her that? Had he messed up already? He was so bad at this.

“Sorry. Bucky said that was your nickname, but if you don't want me to-”

“I do!” She looked up, and then turned very red. “Please.”

“Oh. Okay.” So he had not been wrong yet. Maybe he could do this. Thinking of what his mother used to do for him, he put one hand on her head and gently stroked her hair. She snuggled in.

It felt nice to be holding her, to be the one taking care of someone else. While she might be nearly all elbows and knees, she certainly knew how to make herself comfortable whenever possible. Poor little tyke.

“Tomorrow,” he began, and then hesitated. He should have talked about this before.

But her pretty blue eyes were already on him. “What?”

“Tomorrow, we're going to see a doctor, to check on your stitches. And then. . . we'll see another doctor.”

“What kind of doctor?” Now that instant suspicion was worthy of a younger self, much to Steve's embarrassment.

“A psychologist.”

“No!”

Thankfully she did not pull away, and it was a more muffled, petulant cry into his shirt than anything. Bucky slept on. Steve was beginning to suspect he had been up for the last week, except for naps with Stevie-girl. That he was finally getting some sleep was excellent. However, this was a moment he would have liked to have Bucky on his side.

“Listen, Stevie-girl, I want you to feel like you can say no when you need to, because you are always allowed to say so. But this is not a time that I'm going to agree. You need someone to talk to that isn't me, or Bucky.”

“Don't want to,” she muttered into his belly. He had thought she was older than that sort of behavior, but it was also kind of adorable.

Steve sighed. “I know. But you need this, just like I do.”

That earned him some further eye contact. “You?”

“Yeah.” He tousled her hair. “I need somebody to talk to, too. So I can have a second opinion when I need it. And Maria had to help me adapt to this crazy century. Everything is computers now. Nobody does anything by hand.”

“You cook by hand,” she countered.

“Microwaves are still computers,” he reminded her. “So I'll need your help with those.”

She giggled. “Okay.”

“So, can you handle tomorrow? The pediatrician says he'll be quick, and I'll be with you the whole time.”

“What about Daddy?”

Whoops. “Until some things cool down, Bucky can't come with us in public for a while.”

“What things?” she broke in, not giving him time to placate her further.

He rubbed the back of his head, unsure of exactly how to explain the problem. “Uh. Well, he- um. You know, uh, let's save that one for when he's awake. Since it's about him.”

More suspicion. “Why?”

“Because its his business, kiddo.”

That settled her, for the moment. He had not gotten agreement for cooperation tomorrow, though. He suspected he should not bring that up again, at least not until he had backup. Instead, he focused on getting her to sleep. There was a lot to do in the morning.

She proved to be stubborn, however, which he had to admit she must have gotten from him. “I'm not tired.”

“It's practically 2 a.m. Stevie. You need to sleep.”

“No.”

And now she was folding her arms. Completely out of his depth, Steve was unsure how to proceed. Coming down on her like a ton of bricks probably was not right, but if he let her get away with it, surely that would only encourage her. It was certainly convenient for Bucky to sleep right through this conundrum. Thinking that way, however, was not getting Steve any closer to an answer. Scold or bargain? Or. . .

“How about you tell me what would help you sleep?” It was not a bargain, but maybe he could get some results. And he would not have to be hard on her, which he did not think he had the stomach for in any case.

She looked away, shy again. “My bears.”

Sweeping his eyes around the room, he realized they had left her bear behind. That meant it was in her room, probably. Luckily, it should be easy to find.

“Okay. Let's go get your bear.”

They had company. Star had decided that her best option was to follow them, although that meant she had somehow clawed her way down to the floor. Or worse, jumped. Steve was not sure he liked either thought. But Stevie was delighted to see her and picked her up at once. Why was she the one who got that famous Ragdoll reaction, when he got his fingers nipped? Not that he would have the reverse.

Simple as he thought this would be, Stevie confounded him almost immediately. He had dug around under her top sheet (a luxury item to his sensibilities) and come up with the white bear. She took it. Before he could turn her around, she looked up at him expectantly and asked,

“Where's my other bear?”

Another bear? Did she get one for Christmas? How had he missed that?

“Which bear?” he asked as he got down on his knees to look under the bed.

“Bucky Bear.”

“Buck-”

“What the hell are you two doing?” demanded Bucky from the doorway.

“No swears, Daddy,” Stevie reminded him. That was Steve's rule, but Bucky had been following it. Mostly. If he kept up at his current pace, Steve would have to get a jar and see if money still had the same importance to him it once had.

“It's two in the morning, chickadee. Daddy's got a right to swear.” Bucky picked the dictator up, and repeated, “Now, what are you two doing?”

“Looking for her bears,” Steve said, sticking his whole head underneath her bed so that he would not have to look his friend in the eye.

“My Bucky Bear is missing,” Stevie-girl helpfully supplied.

“He's right here,” Bucky said and Steve prayed- honestly composed the prayer in great detail- that Bucky was not referring to himself.

“Good. Captain Ameribear would be lonely.”

My God, thought Steve, there's a lot of dust under here. I need to get the vacuum. And certainly not think very hard about what she just said.

“Quit playing with the dust bunnies, Steve. We need to put this kid back to bed.”

“I don't wanna go to bed.” There was a definite pout in her voice. Steve knew full well they ought to squash it. But she was just a baby!

The look he got when he turned to look at Bucky told him his friend was thinking the same way. “Then let's go watch that movie Stark gave you. Song of the Ocean, was it?”

“Song of the Sea,” Steve corrected. “I don't know, Bucky, it's late-”

“Like you don't stay up hitting the bag every night. It'd do you more good if you taped a picture of Stark's face to it.”

“Why?” Stevie asked, but Bucky ignored the question in favor of reminding her how late it was.

Not even five minutes into the film, Stevie-girl was out cold. With her head in Bucky's lap and her legs practically jammed into Steve's spleen, there was little chance of escaping. Star had also claimed Steve's shoulder, snoozing peacefully. The movie was beautiful, but he had intended to spend tonight in bed like a sane person might do before a full day. Bucky slowly rescued him, taking his sweet time rounding up the kitten, the bears, and the blankets. That left Steve holding their little girl.

This was exactly how he had pictured it from the moment he knew he was a father: a good fire, soft music, fine hair beneath his fingers that he could gently stroke, and a snuggly warm body in his arms. Perfection, in a word. Except. . .

Well, she was still thin and pokey. No wonder Bucky had complained when they had been two boys sharing a narrow bed. Then, too, she was more hot than warm, but held on to her special blanket with a deathgrip. Most of all, there was either an elbow or a knee now pressing hard into his bladder with a vengeance. Soon- very soon- that was going to be an issue.

For now, however, she was finally sleeping soundly. Bucky would be back in a minute and they could go to bed together. Aside from those little problems, this was very pleasant. Not that he had doubted that it could be, if it would ever happen.

The plain truth was that Steve had stopped believing it would happen to him. Even with Peggy his imagination had played it safe: working together, maybe a kiss, but no further. Being catapulted 75 years into the future, an entirely different world from his point of view, had not helped. Not only did he have no one to contemplate even the prequel to hanky-panky with, he barely understood half of what they said. Probably a few of them had been interested, and he had been interested once, but it never got farther than interest.

Bucky was- Bucky always had been different. He knew Steve well, maybe too well. That first time, when he had enticed Steve into their nebulous relationship, he had been sweet, understanding, and refused to let Steve say no. Not in a demanding way, but it was undoubtedly manipulative. He knew Steve could not say yes, could not believe Bucky would even want to do that for Steve, could never guess it was not pity that motivated him. So Bucky had let him say wait, had let him say stop, but had not given him room to go for a complete halt. Not that, once they got going, he had much wanted to cease anything.

Stevie snuggled in, changing her position to really stab into his bladder. He grunted and lifted her up. If Bucky was taking his own time, Steve would take her to bed himself. It was better than losing vital organs to sharp elbows.

When he came into the room, Bucky was wrestling the kitten out from under the blankets. “You are a fuzzy monstrosity, and no help at all,” he was telling her.

“I could have told you that, Buck.”

“Don't wake her,” he scolded softly as he put the kitten down on top of the blankets. “Just bring her here and we'll tuck her in.”

She was quickly settled back in between them. With a mew, Star curled up on Stevie's tummy and resumed her snoozing. With a snort, Bucky rubbed the furry head. He murmured to Steve,

“Now she's a perfect angel.”

“Blankets make her crazy,” Steve replied, keeping his voice down. “I think they're her mortal enemy.”

“Right, that's the problem. That, and not, say, the fact that's she's a furry little b-”

“Language,” Steve warned.

“Ball of evil.” Bucky gave a wicked grin that squeezed around Steve's heart. “What did you think I was going to say, punk?”

“Something you shouldn't in front of a baby,” Steve countered. “Like anything you said for the whole time I've known you.”

Bucky snorted. “Yeah, 'cause you're a real saint in the mouth department.”

Steve ignored that, true as it may be. “We need to sleep. Her first appointment is at nine.”

“I remember.” He said that a lot now, to remind Steve that he was no longer HYDRA's mindless puppet. And perhaps himself too.

Steve closed his eyes, and then Bucky asked, “Are you going to be okay?”

“What?”

“Tomorrow. Without me.”

Steve sighed heavily. “Probably. But you're not going, even if it's a mess. We'll figure it out.”

“Steve-”

“No,” Steve told him. “The last thing she needs right now is to watch her daddy get taken down by a tactical military unit, don't you think?”

“I'm just. . .”

Steve reached over and grabbed Bucky's hand. “Trust me, Buck. I'll take good care of her. She's going to be okay. And so are we. Besides, somebody has to get the place ready, and I'd just muck up her room.”

“You're just skipping out on the heavy lifting,” Bucky snapped back, but without his usual fire. Steve just held onto his hand. There was nothing else to say. Tomorrow was just going to be. . . a day. Somehow they would get through it.


	27. Calm

Stevie had done her best through the physical exam, with the help of Dad and her bears. With only a brief look under her shirt at her scars, the doctor had done a lot of nodding and mostly spent his time advising Dad on what she could and could not do. The nurse had been very nice, with a lollipop as well as the right to rifle through the prize drawer for some stickers. But the therapist was too much. Especially with the door closed and Dad on the wrong side. Besides, her voice was gone again. What was she supposed to say in the first place? What right did he have to talk with her about anything? And how dare he ask about the basement?

Surely she was justified in jumping into Dad's lap. Probably slamming open the door was a little overkill. All the same, she was not going back in there.

Dad was surprisingly stubborn, however. He took her in, and sat with her on the couch. No more escaping. Well, nobody could make her listen, anyway. Instead she thought about the biography of Louisa May Alcott she had found in Mr. Stark's library. It was a lot more interesting, and safe.

By the time she was kicking her feet in the back of the car, after an hour of kicking her feet on the couch in the therapist's office, she would have thought Dad would be a little fed up with her. Therefore it was quite the conundrum when he turned and asked her if she wanted to go out for lunch as if she had not just spent the last several hours being a useless, pouting burden.

“I know a good place,” he added, “if you like sandwiches.”

Slowly, she nodded. Sandwiches were good. And Dad did have good taste in food, even if Daddy said he was awful at cooking. It was still a little strange to be asked to go out to lunch. Surely Daddy missed them.

“We'll bring something home to Bucky,” Dad told her, as if he could read her mind. “He's too busy to step out with us.”

Why? She wanted to ask, but that might jeopardize the sandwiches. Right now she should be thinking of what kind of sandwich she wanted. Was tuna fancy enough, or too little girl? Maybe a Reuben? It sounded foreign and cool. Though, she thought it came with a dipping sauce and she had no idea how to use that with a sandwich. A good grilled cheese would be delicious, but no one found that anywhere but the kid's menu. In the midst of this mental dilemma, Dad reached back and ruffled her hair gently.

“Don't worry. There will plenty for you, me, and Bucky. Trust me. They do not do small portions.” As he made that note aloud, he pulled over and parked.

He let her out of the passenger side, and she grabbed his hand. There were way too many people around. New York appeared to have just thousands of them walking at all times, which was crazy to contemplate. Giving her hand a small squeeze, Dad pulled her along into a store. Stevie caught a glimpse of the ornately scrolled word “delicatessen” as they went through the glass door.

“Hey, Steve!” came a shout from behind the glass counter. “Mama, come and see! Steve is back!”

“Hey!” were further cries from the kitchen. Stevie glanced up as she slid behind Dad. Outside had been loud, but this was almost worse. How could twenty people even fit in this small store?

“Ah, hi Ernie,” Dad said, and he sounded sheepish. “We're just coming in for some sandwiches, and-”

A bustling, round woman entered from the back, throwing up her floury hands. “Steven! Look at you! Too skinny, much too skinny!”

“Aw gee, Irene,” muttered Dad, now rubbing the back of his neck.

Tsk-tsk, went her tongue, as she moved past the counter. “Much too skinny. You should eat!”

“That's kind of what we're here to do.”

By now, Stevie had been spotted. Despite her best efforts, she could not stay out of everyone's line of sight. Irene threw up her hands, and said to the man behind the counter,

“Look at that! Steven finally found himself a lady!”

Fortunately, Dad picked up on her cues, and scooped her into his arms with a murmured, “Sorry, Stevie-girl.”

“Well, well. Someone finally managed to tie him down, eh?” chuckled Ernie. “Oi, Mario! Steve's gotten hitched!”

“Excuse me,” Steve said, red as a beet.

“No way!” cried the younger man who tumbled through the door. “Aw, dad! She's way too little for that conclusion.”

“Ah-ah,” dismissed the young man's father. “She's young, but she's not young enough to be his, right? That means he's got a lady friend with a kid.”

“And?” asked the son, apparently fascinated by this line of thinking.

“And he's brought the kid around here, which means he's doing very well. A lady doesn't leave her kid to just any man, you know. She's probably gotten him to propose.”

At this, Irene whacked Ernie in the shoulder with a dishtowel. “I left my son with you, didn't I? Now, you stop making up theories and help poor Mrs. Norris. Mario, those fish won't fillet themselves. And don't even think of sneaking in a few texts to Laura Fisher. It's unhygienic.”

“Ma!” moaned the boy. “It was one time!”

“Out!” she said firmly, and he grumbled his way back through the door.

Stevie looked up at Dad, and he only shrugged, looking fairly helpless. Curious, she glanced down at Irene's shoes. They were not saddle shoes, but they looked eminently sensible all the same. And there was, slightly out of sight underneath a coat, a black feather boa on the hatstand behind the counter. Another Mrs. Cornelia Emerson, then. No wonder everyone was so cowed.

“All right. Now then. Tell me all about this little lady.”

“Er, actually, we have to get back soon. . .”

“Oh? That's no fun. And look at her! She needs to eat, Steven. And I have just the thing: freshly made spaghetti and meatballs. Sit down, sit down! It won't take but a minute.”

In the end, even eating as quickly as her stomach would allow, it took Stevie more than half an hour. While she began to eat, Dad had feebly attempted to order sandwiches. Irene casually brushed his idea aside, plunking down his own full plate of spaghetti firmly. She also continued to berate her husband and son about giving people what they were asking for, instead of what she thought they needed. Apparently she was right, or else too much a force of nature, because no one argued with her at all. It was quite the show.

Eventually, as Irene wormed the story out of him, Dad passed Stevie his phone so she could text Daddy. She told him about Irene, and the spaghetti. His reply was simply to eat up, say thank you, and come home soon. So Dad was right when he said Daddy was busy. With what, though?

Before she could ask, Dad had finally acquired the sandwiches. Slipping his arm around her waist, he pulled her from the table and hurried out the door. He did not avoid an extra box of desserts, which Stevie accepted personally. She smelled chocolate, and coffee.

Dad slid her into the back seat, where she frowned a little. It was terribly annoying that she could not sit up front, when Daddy let her before. But Dad was pretty strict about rules, especially ones that involved safety. Probably, he was the type to enforce them for her, while breaking every last one on his own. Maybe it was personal experience talking?

“Now that we've got that out of the way,” he said with a heavy sigh, “Let's go home.”

She nodded, and put the box carefully on the seat beside her. It would be a pretty long drive back to the airport. Before he pulled out of the space, Dad looked back at her.

“Don't worry, Stevie-girl. It's not far, but how about you grab your blanket and snuggle in?”

Not far? She gathered her blanket and her bears. It had taken ages to get to the doctor's office from the airport, and the therapist had only been a few minutes from there, and then the sandwich place was a little way further. How close could they be?

Not close enough for her to stay awake. She only woke up again when Dad was already lifting her from the seat and she almost dropped Bucky Bear. Gently, Dad put her against his hip.

“It's all right. I have you.” He guided her head to his shoulder. Stevie gave in again, and snoozed there until she heard Daddy's voice.

“Didn't I tell you not to wear her out, Steve? Hey there, sleepy girl.” And Daddy plucked her from Steve's arms effortlessly.

“Hi,” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes with the hand holding Captain Ameribear.

“Got your belly full, hm?” he asked, teasingly rubbing her tummy.

She nodded firmly, and then looked around. Where were they? This building was definitely not the airport, or the Avengers Headquarters. It was all brick inside the stairwell they were climbing, with only a few old windows. So, where were they now?

“Ready to see your new home?” Steve asked, and he looked very excited.

She looked at Daddy, and he smiled slightly. “I bet he wants you to close your eyes and everything.”

“Okay,” she said quietly, and covered her eyes with her bears. Daddy chuckled, but Dad said,

“We have another floor to go, Stevie-girl. But it's worth it, I promise.”

He sounded very enthusiastic. That was something she had not read in the biographies of him. When someone made another one, she would have to write in and tell them. And that he loved cute things. Yesterday they had been looking at dresses on the computer, and everything he liked had ruffles, or lace, or gauze, or flowers, or ribbons. Not that Stevie was against those things, but. . . she did not look good in them, not really.

“Now you can cover your eyes,” Dad instructed with a big grin.

This time Daddy took the bears so she could put her hands properly on her eyes. After a brief rattle of the doorknob, she felt Daddy carrying her inside. Even then, Dad said,

“Not yet. Just- just one second. Wait. . . wait. . .”

“Nit-picky,” muttered Daddy.

“There. Perfect. Go ahead now, Stevie-girl.”

Released, Stevie let her hands fall back to her sides. She looked around at the large room in awe. It was quite modern at first glance, but made cozy by plushy rugs and the light colored furniture in off white, blue, and occasional hints of red. There was even a dividing wooden screen between the living room and kitchen. The windows had heavy blackout curtains too, currently down. Soft lighting was provided by several pretty fixtures done in black. To put it mildly, she was amazed. This was probably the nicest place she had ever seen.

And there were red tulips in a white porcelain vase on the coffee table. That was probably what Steve made her wait for, but it made her smile. Home, he had called it, and then he had made sure there were fresh flowers. No wonder Stark kept calling him old.

“Would you like to see your room?” asked Daddy softly after suitable time given for her to goggle.

“Mine?”

“Yes, all yours. And your own bathroom, too,” added Dad, looking so pleased with himself.

And it was true. The seashore themed bathroom was hers, in soft aqua and gray, with yellow accents. She had her own shower and deep bathtub, and a large sink, a big mirror that looked too clean to be real, and four vanity drawers she had no clue what to do about. What did people even put in them, anyway? There was even a nice set of watercolors of beach stuff, sea stars and all that jazz. She would never have thought to put art in a bathroom, but they looked fairly tasteful.

The pièce de résistance, however, was her very own bedroom. It was not nearly as plain as the little room back in Oregon that Daddy had brought her to, but it was still very cozy. The walls were a light gray down to waist height, with a thin line of red, and then dark blue below. Those colors carried throughout, except for her black and silver curtains. A navy blue rug kept the wood floor from being too cold under her feet when she got out of bed and extended in front of the good sized window, perfect for sunbathing. Another scarlet one made it possible for her to stand in front of and inside her closet with bare feet. Her bed had red sheets and a red pillow, on top of a gray frame, and was clearly waiting for her Captain America blanket.

Most of all, she loved the way the room was laid out. Her bed was not directly up against the window, but off to one side. Also, it was just the right size for her, not enormous like Dad and Daddy's beds, and slung low enough that she did not have to worry about falling out of it. Her navy nightstand had a silver clock and three small drawers, so she could put a book inside or maybe a flashlight if she needed one. There were lots of shelves of different heights and depths for books, and storing her stuff. Her gray desk was also off to the opposite side of the window from her bed, and the shelves to the right were stocked with supplies like reams of paper, pens and pencils in multiple painted jars, an entire small basket of erasers and sharpeners, a calculator, post-its, sharpies, paperclips on a magnet block- basically any office supply freak's dream, and she was one hundred percent okay with it. She even had a cat tree for Star, between the desk and the window so they could hang out cozily. Plus, to add to all that, she had a huge closet on the third wall, and an actual backless couch in front of it in case she had a need to sit somewhere other than her bed or the red chair at her desk. She could have friends over! If she made any friends.

“Nat and Wanda helped put your stuff away, but you can move anything you like,” Dad assured her. “This place is all yours, and all we'd like is for you to keep a path from here to the door so we can come in if there's an emergency. And don't leave food in here, please.”

“There's one more thing you need to see,” Daddy said, and for some reason Dad turned beet red. “It's from Steve.”

Dad took her hand in his normal sheepish way, and led her down the hall to the next door. This room was bright, with no curtains, but lots of desk and shelf space. It was all very organized, and full of art supplies. For a moment she was holding her breath, but it all came out in wonder when she saw a sectioned-off portion of desk that had wooden letters over it carefully spelling out “Stevie,” in red, white, and blue.

“I know we don't really know each other all that well, but. . .” Steve rubbed the back of his head. “I was hoping you wouldn't mind if we. . . uh, if we hung out. Together.”

She nodded. It was all she could do. He smiled a little.

“Then we'll do some art together. You and me.”

“Okay,” she managed, and he grinned.

There was a meow, and then Stevie felt the brush of soft fur against her left calf. Behind her, Daddy made a grumbling noise, but Stevie was delighted. She loved her kitty. Scooping Star up, and listening with glee to her instant purr, she rubbed her nose against the kitten's head.

“I think it's about time to settle in, huh? How about we pick the painting for the living room? We can all sit on the couch together.” suggested Dad.

“That's a big couch,” Stevie remarked, and it sounded so normal that she startled herself.

“That's because you and Steve take up about twice as much room as a normal person,” Daddy told her. “So I made him get the biggest that would fit.”

“I like it,” she insisted, and got a grin in reply.

“I knew you would. So, come on. We'll go stare at paintings until we have no opinion whatsoever.”

Eventually, she fell asleep again. With a purring kitten on her lap and both parents debating the best colors for the space, there was nothing interesting enough to keep her up. She did not wake all the way up when Daddy carried her to bed. He kissed her forehead and murmured,

“Sleep well, chickadee. You're home. And you'll never have to leave again.”


End file.
